Be My Fool
by InsignificantBlimp
Summary: As usual, there's a group of kids visiting the camp; but what happens when they're sent there for protection? More importantly, what for and who from? KUnit, Alex, an old friend and a lot of OC. Please review if you read! (Rarely updated, just as a warning)
1. Chapter One

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter One**_

_Disclaimer: No, I don't own Alex._

xxxx

As usual, K Unit was tired and bored that night after the strenuous exercises of the day.

Eagle was whimpering slightly, prodding his swelling cheekbone where Snake had caught him, glaring at Snake who merely ignored the tousle-haired man. Snake flicked a page of his _'Most Unlikely Medical Care to be used in Difficult Situations' _manual written by some mad scientist from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Snake thought that most mad men were from England. Eagle agreed and said that he was a perfect example.

Which got him a smack across the face and a sharp shooting pain right through his cheekbone and along his nose, ending at his forehead and leaving a small buzzing; the start of a headache.

Wolf shot the black haired man a warning look before returning to murmur quietly to his fellow dark-haired teammate, Fox, who had recently returned from a mission at Bangkok. He was here to re-train and try to get fit enough to finish his mission, if not he knew that he mightn't get another chance like this in a while.

Then... One word.

And that word slipped through the door, eyes shadowed and face hardened, 'Hello, boys.'

Eagle fell off his bed. Snake's book fell from his grip. Wolf looked startled. But Fox just looked up, smiling, and said:

'Alex, so nice to see you.'

xxxx

'I heard that this is a joke! We were driving around in a huge circle so that they think we're far away from home even though we aren't...'

'Well _I _heard that they got sick of us and shipped us off here so they could get rid of us...'

'I heard that there's a specific target! That there's one person on here that...'

'That's idiotic! We're here 'cause Ingram's in trouble! He's part of drug dealing...'

'And _I _think,' Leah squeaked in a loud impression of them, 'That faeries kidnapped the American president, took over our government and ordered us all to die!'

Tulip laughed, I snorted and Chloe's lips twitched but looked slightly uneasy.

'Don't.' She sighed, 'God, I feel sick!'

I smiled at her, though I was worried too, 'Hey! No stealing my limelight! I'm the travel sick one!'

'More like the dramatic one – remember in Drama when a spider was sitting on the edge of her desk! She started to scream and jumped out of her seat. Don't worry Chloe, nobody will notice your nervousness when she's pissing herself.' Leah snorted in an un-ladylike fashion at the memory.

'I didn't scream _that _loud,' I replied, Farah rolled her eyes and cut in before a 'debate' broke out.

'Look, we're slowing. We're... here.' She said, face paling.

We all spun, and I blanched.

It was somewhere in Wales, I guessed from the long journey, and the drizzling rain plus the mountain-side backed up my assumption. There were plenty of soldiers milling around, making their way to different places and only sparing half a glance as we passed.

I tried not to let it show as I turned around, but my stomach gave a... uh, _small-_ish jolt of nerves as we turned in, 'So... ready for a few fun-packed weeks here?'

'No, I'm really not,' Chloe replied, shuddering into her black over-coat that Leah had thrown over her shoulder at her.

I grimaced as Mr Savage, as well going as always, stood up and said, 'Grab your bag and off the bus! C'mon now! Not the whiney faces, you all chose this so get your buts into gear.'

Mr Savage was a maths teacher and had an uncanny resemblance to David Tennant except for the, y'know, good looking and charming parts. Sir just had the quirky, fun parts to him but was also rather a bit tall. He always gels his hair up so it's sticking up a foot from his head, which makes him look a bit like charmander; and the square, black-rimmed glasses didn't help. Mr Savage was probably my favourite teacher... or one of them.

Leah quirked an eyebrow as the bus shuffled with students getting up and taking as much time to grab their things, 'We _chose _this?'

'According to him,' Farah said, sighing, 'let's get out of here - I'm sick of this bus.'

I couldn't help but agree and she motioned for me to go first.

'Thanks,' I grumbled, stumbling forward and down the steps of the bus and into the misty rain.

'Thank you, Jenny,' Mr Savage said thankfully, smiling, 'I thought nobody had the guts to come out.'

I gave him a small, painful, smile, 'No worries.'

_Actually, there were a lot of worries flowing through my head right now._

He beamed back before turning to the door and exclaiming, 'Don't shove! You'll-'

But his sentence was cut off when two figures hit face first into the mud.

The class erupted into laughter and I felt my lips twitch as I looked at the two mud-covered boys, who were starting to roll over each other in a mock fight.

Farah hung my head in her hands and said, muffled slightly, 'Can't they be goddamned serious for one bloody second?'

Chloe, Leah and I all laughed at her, though it went unnoticed by the other students.

Leah flung her arm around her shoulders, 'Oh, dearest Fah-Fah! The worst is yet to come.'

_Only too true._

'Shut up!' A dark haired and brown eyed man yelled, 'Get up you brats.'

They stumbled to their feet quickly and we shut up, watching him in fright as we stood stock still on the muddy, slippy ground.

I bit the inside of my lip, hoping that they weren't going to act like this all the way through our stay.

_Yeah, right, _I thought to myself, _Get real Jenny._

'Right,' a mousey-haired man, with a southern accent, stepped forward; his green eyes piercing us all and his stance radiating power and control, 'I'm Yak, Director of B Unit. This is Beaver, Jaguar and Tiger,' he introduced his group, 'and _we _have the _great _opportunity to take on eight of you.'

He smiled, a rather petrifying and anguishing thing to see, while the other men looked upon us all in disdain.

Mr Savage cleared his throat uncomfortable, 'Uh... yes, here's the list.'

He was rather pale and shaking slightly as he handed the list to an amused looking Yak, who read out, 'Right, the very lucky people who we have the pleasure to _teach_ are... Claire Wrightson.'

The pretty blonde, mostly known as a scene kid, with blue eyes, pulled her bear hat further on her head and moved away from her best friend, towards A Unit.

'Oliver Williams.'

He sulked slightly as he walked away from his friends, sneering at Claire as he arrived.

_He'll have a black eye later, _I thought while smiling slightly and sharing a look with Leah.

'Farah Rowntree.'

Farah blanched next to me and I muttered good luck under my breath while giving her a little push of encouragement. Claire gave her a look of disgust and I promptly wished that I _had _jumped in when she beat up Lizzie, who wasn't on this... _trip_.

'Harry Daniels.'

He got up, from the same ring of friends as Oliver, and walked forward. I'd think they were brothers if I didn't know any better, very dark brown hair and both had blazing brown eyes. They usually done the same things together or dated the same people at least once; they were man whores too, which made me pity Farah all the more.

'Kayla Walters.'

I closed my eyes in annoyance as she shrieked, piercing my ear drums and ruining my hearing for at least a good half an hour, 'What? No! No! I will _not_!'

I opened my eyes again when it was done and nearly flinched at the black look Yak was giving her. She visibly gulped.

'You will do so without complain, _Walters_, unless you want kitchen duty for the rest of your miserable stay.'

She trembled and hurriedly stumbled her way next to them.

'Last but not least,' he smirked slightly here as if it were an inside joke of some sort and a few men sniggered, 'Tom Moore and Kate McCabe.'

Claire's best friend grinned and practically ran over, hugging her. Making them both stumble and a few of the other students' snicker, the soldiers sending disdaining looks to both them and the others. Tom mooched his way over sullenly.

'Oh, and Joshua Mulliet. Right, onto C Unit.'

And so, it continued. C, D, E and G Unit were all rather boring and uniform – you know, call out a name or two, wait for them to show up, call out another. However, it was a pleasant surprise that not _all _of them were as strict and boring as they were. Out of interest, I'll just say C Unit's leader is Husky, D Unit is Addax, E Unit is Leopard and Oryx for G Unit... well, actually, it's so I _hopefully _remember them. I really don't want to get on their bad sides.

Cheetah, from H Unit, barely gave a second glance to the names as he read them out but was giving his team mate Iguana a withering look every time he cheered for the next pupil – much to the amusement of the students and embarrassment of the soldiers. It was more than a _little _amusing when Ruby was called out and he started to swing her around in the air in a bear hug. We all laughed while she blushed to the roots – I couldn't blame her, they all looked quite fit.

Then we laughed harder when J Unit rolled around. Bison was practically fighting his own soldiers [Ferret and Meerkat, I learned] as they started to holler out the National Anthem every time he tried to speak. It took ten minutes before they had them both effectively gagged and tied up – they didn't seem to care that we were laughing our arses off again.

However, as the next man stepped up, the original one who greeted us, and glared at all, we shut up as he spoke. 'Welcome to K Unit. I'm Wolf, this is Snake,' he said to us remaining eight, barely looked up from talking with another soldier, 'Eagle – _cut it out!_'

It was only then I noticed that Eagle was trying to tie up his shoe laces and shared a look, again, with Chloe and Leah who were on either side of me trying to smother smirks... well, a smirk and a giggle – Chloe didn't smirk much.

' Plus Fox,' this was the man Snake was talking to, 'And Cub.'

I looked over to the man and was startled to see his dark brown eyes on me, boring into my own with such an intense piercing look that I froze and just stared back at him. His dark brown tousled hair fell over his eyes slightly, giving him the hard edged look that screamed trouble. He was nearly as tall as the others, though clearly not even twenty at second glance. His stance shown that he was a trained soldier an-

Leah nudged me sharply in my rib cage and breathed in my ear, 'He's pretty hot, huh?'

I snapped out of my stupor and whacked her over the head, blushing, causing Chloe to snicker.

This was going to be... hell.

xxxx

_If I'm perfectly honest, I HATE this chapter. It's such a ridiculous filler that even __**I **__find it boring._

_Anyway... RE-DO's are SO much fun._

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[24****th****June2011]]****


	2. Chapter Two

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Two**_

_Disclaimer: No, I don't own Alex._

xxxx

_Sticky. Oily. All around me._

_It was in my mouth. In my ears._

_I shut my eyes. In my eyes._

_Metallic. Coppery._

_Slick and sticky._

_It was blood._

_I was drowning. In blood._

_Blood... Blood. So much blood._

'NO! NO! DON'T STEAL MY CAKE MR. MUSHROOM MAN!'

_ . ._

My eyes jolted open, my breath sharp and uneven, heart thumping in my ears and adrenaline pounding in my blood. I let out a shaky breath; thanking God Leah had woke me up with her stupid shouts of Mr. Mushroom Man eating her bloody cake.

Sitting up slowly, I started to calm myself and blew my fringe out of my eyes.

_Thump..thump..thump..thump._

I sat silently, watching the sun filter through the crooked blinds. There was only one window facing east, just big enough to fit one of us through – though definitely not big enough to fit a grown man or woman. It was next to the door, which was made out of reinforced wood and was practically air-tight. The room itself was actually quite clean... even if it didn't look it.

Last night, after our packed-tea which we had brought along, we had been shuffled to our cabins and wished our friends in other Units goodbye as we stepped through the door. I had to admit; I was repulsed by what they lived in. Grey walls, cold tiled floors, metal framed bunk beds – again grey, wooden white sheets and pillows, one shower, one sink, one toilet, one mirror and one towel. Thank God we all brought our own. Looking back... we really should have seen it coming.

_Thump...Thump...Thump...Thump._

My heartbeat steadied and I smiled, pushing the horrible dream aside, while peeking at the digital clock I had put next to pillow on my bed. 5:30.

Then I tried to roll out of bed and squeaked slightly as I swung over the edge and hung, by my feet, upside down. My vision swung and I blinked a few times to try and clear it, I was shocked to find where I'd found myself. I was now looking at a peacefully sleeping Leah – upside down.

Did I forget to tell you that I was on a _top bunk_? Yeah, there were two bunk beds at either side of the small room with one pathway into the cabin and into the bathroom at the other end. Sadly, I had forgotten. _Shit_.

The door opened and Eagle, I recognised, yelled, 'RISE AND SHI-I-INE!'

_Double shit._

The girls screamed and I glowered slightly, knowing I'd never live this down. Leah blinked at me once before rolling into fits of laughter, the others just stared at me as if I'd grown another head. Ah...

_Triple shit._

Eagle snorted, then grinned cheekily and said, 'Having fun _hanging around?_'

I felt like snorting right back at him – _no I was not having fun 'hanging around'!_

'As much as I like this, I'd love help to get down.' I replied, trying not to scream at them.

He sighed and I felt hands just above my waist, 'If you _insist._'

And then I was flipped over and plopped onto the floor with a loud 'thud'. Chloe and Tulip burst out laughing too as he grinned at me, winked, and sauntered out of the cabin while saying, 'Mess hall in half an hour, girlies – something more appropriate.'

The door snapped shut and I was sure I was blushing magenta as I tugged on my shorts to try and regain some of my dignity.

'G-_God_!' Leah spluttered, 'Thanks for making our morning, Jen!'

I glared and Tulip managed to snort out, 'I'm sure it made _Eagle's _morning!'

Grabbing my toiletries and clothes, I stalked to the bathroom with a flaming face and slammed it after me.

I repeat: I am _never _going to live this down.

xxxx

They lasted longer than I thought, a whole fifteen minutes when we were getting our 'breakfast' before bringing it back up.

'So...' Chloe smirked slightly, 'You didn't tell us you were going into acrobats Jen! What a surprise!'

Clenching my hands , the others snickered and I glared at her – face flaming.

Sam, who had overheard as he was standing next to Chloe in the line, looked at me with a raised eyebrow, 'What happened?'

'Well!' Leah started, _very _loudly, 'You see- !'

I stepped on her foot, quite hard, and fake smiled, 'Turns out I'm the only one who can do a cartwheel. Isn't that right ladies?'

They all froze for a second before biting on their lips and nodding, before looking away and sniggering. Gah! Stupid friends at least know what _not _to do – I do _not _want my antics spread around my school 'mates'.

They learned that the hard way... insert evil, manic laughter here.

I grabbed a, _shockingly_, grey tray and held it out so that the dinner lady could put whatever the fuck _that_ was into the bowl-like imprint. I used to have these at my juniors, before they started to understand that we weren't nursery children and deserved proper cutlery.

Stupid SAS – I glared at the tray.

She spotted my look and laughed, making me look up. I was shocked to see a youthful looking face, along with sparkling blue eyes; short, blonde hair; pearly, white teeth and a skinny frame. What was she doing in a place like this?

Laughing again, she said, 'My dad's the sergeant – and I know, these things are disgusting... heck, the food is too, just pinch your nose and down it I say!'

I blushed, not realising I'd said it out loud and replied, 'That sucks. Thanks for the advice too,' and then I smiled back before shuffling along and taking a bottle of water.

Leah and Tulip waved me over from a table near the back and I meandered over, snatching a spoon as I went by. Sliding onto the bench opposite them, I took the seat at the wall and started to prod the lumpy, white goo in my 'bowl'.

It wasn't long until Tulip started to cough loudly and I snorted, having looked up to see that she had decided to try and eat it. Leah dropped her spoon quickly and pushed it away from her.

'What's it taste like?' Chloe asked Tulip, mooching into the spot next to me and looking cautiously over it.

Tulip hacked out, '_Shit_.' Then she shuddered heavily and pushed it away from her, 'I'm planning on starving, who's with me?'

'I am!' Leah yelled, apparently gallantly, 'Let us throw it onto the floor and stand on it to prove our point!'

Her hands grabbed the edges of her tray and I grabbed it before she could get us into trouble.

'Leah!' Chloe hissed, now a very dark purple, 'Just eat the goddamn stuff.'

Noticing the silence around us, I bit my lip and looked up into the angry face of Wolf.

_Oh, bugger. _Well... there goes my 'try not to get into trouble' plan.

Leah and Tulip shrunk into their seats and Wolf spat out, his face a strange beetroot colour and jaw clenched, 'I _do _hope that you weren't about to do what I thought because if you _were_,' his voice dropped even lower, 'I would send you around to the Kill House right now and make sure that you passed _at least _ten times before you went for food _or _sleep. Is that clear?'

'Yes, sir,' Leah mumbled and I watched, fascinated, as a vein in his forehead bulged.

'_WHAT?_' He screamed.

We flinched slightly, his vein bulged even more.

I mouthed 'yes, sir' at her again and she moved her darting eyes back to him and said, clearly this time, 'Yes, sir.'

He nodded before stalking off back to his table. The noise increased, our wonderful classmates now energetic at having something to gossip about, and we turned back to each other.

'Did you see his vein?' I blurted before I could stop myself and they all started to laugh, I blushed again.

'Of everything you have to notice, you notice _that_,' Chloe wiped her eyes before grinning, 'Lord, what would we do without your idiotic...ness.'

She made a puzzled face and we rolled our eyes, Leah nodded though, and she said, 'Yeah... I think "idioticness" is the word.'

Tulip and I shared a look before shaking our heads and returning to attempt to eat our food.

xxxx

Wolf and Bison stood in front of us, and by 'us' I mean J and K Unit kids. The other soldiers were loitering behind them, whispering and sniggering. They were quite alike us, school kids, but with... muscles and... scary-ness.

'Right,' Bison barked, 'This morning, you're on the agility course. Each of you from J Unit will pull a colour out of this bag,' he held up said blue bag, 'and each of you from K Unit will pull a colour out of _this _bag,' he help up said red bag, 'and you will partner up with the person in the opposite Unit for this task. Then grab one set of instructions between you and your partner and set off. Last partner set in will get kitchen duty for tonight. Alright? Good.'

The soldiers sodded off and he flung the bags to the floor, smirking and sauntering out. I think it's a pattern in soldiers, all high and- Oh, wait! We've started!

I rushed to the red bag and pulled out one of the last colours – the card was striped blue and red.

Spinning around, I bashed nosed with Jordan and said, 'Oh, God, sorry Jordan!'

He rubbed his nose, smiling politely, 'No worries, c'mon – we're partners,' he explained to my look, 'and I've picked out a set of instructions.'

I nodded, took a small step back and looked at the piece of paper as he unfolded it.

It read: _Face the nearest tree to the red flag post, from said flag post, and turn 90 degrees. Keep on walking for 200 paces._

'Simple!' I said, smiling, and he smiled back.

Poor boy, I thought, as he looked around for the flag post.

'There it is!' He nodded behind us and I turned to look at the red flag, sitting in the middle of the lake.

'Not so simple anymore, ey?' He droned slightly, sighing, and set off towards the lake.

The others had already set off about different directions.

_Shit._

He'd already took off his shirt and set off towards the middle of the lake, top wrapped around his neck so that it didn't touch the water much. I grimaced at my choice of underwear today before taking off my top and wrapping it around my neck too before wading in and starting to swim. Black lace was _not _good to wear when with a white top.

Gah. I'm already blushing.

Shuddering, I tried to ignore the cold of the lake and thanked my lucky stars that it wasn't windy.

He started to wade next to the flag and was looking around, he turned to look back at me when I was next to him. I thanked the heavens that he wasn't a pervert as he just ignored my awkwardness and smiled.

It wasn't creepy. Good.

'Found the tree. D'you know degrees well?' He asked me, pointing to the tree on the sandy shore rather than the rocky one.

I nodded, turning in the water ninety degrees and pointing to where a small sign was, 'That way.'

And we set off, in silence until we got out. I was pretty sure I was a deep red by now as I pulled my top off from around my neck but he said that it would be useless to put it on straight away, if I was soaking wet.

That sounds a bit perverted, but he _did _look quite uncomfortable so I took his advice into account and dabbed most of the wet off before putting it on.

I smiled sheepishly, 'Sorry, self-conscious, but thanks.'

He nodded and we set off, leaving a trail of water behind us.

xxxx

It wasn't long after when we came to a large, flat, oak panel at least 30ft high. We'd just travelled through a tunnel of trees, having only realised when I looked around to see that this was our only way forward and I doubt that if we turned back and tried to find another route, we would come before last.

There were small holes and blips that stuck out, and so we began our ascent.

'Bagsy the right side!' He yelled, a small grin on his face as he raced forward to begin. Smirking at the thought of a challenge, I ran and jumped onto a small ledge on the left side and slotted my hands into two ledges above me.

Hauling myself up, I was tired when I had only reached a third of the way up – I was shattered when I got to the top of it. I swung my left hand above me, grabbed the metal ring at the top and let go with my right hand to help haul myself on top.

It only occurred to me that there was nothing to catch us if we fell – on either side.

God. I'm stupid.

He was sitting there, poised, looking at the descent below us and the ropes. Damn it, I was sitting here panting like a freaking _dog _and he's completely fine! Stupid, tall lads. Idiotic genes.

Then, without any warning, he slipped his other leg over and grabbed the rope before sliding down it. My heart jumped to my throat but he was alright, just wincing in pain and blowing on his hands.

Ouch. Rope burn.

Well, time to go shirtless! Or burn my hands...

I decided on burning my hands, nearly killing myself and falling over as I hit the bottom. And, like the gentleman he was, he ignored my bruised ego and helped me up.

'Okay, I've nearly killed myself once. What's next?' I asked, turning to him.

He was already climbing up the ladder and called, 'Hurry up!' over his shoulder at me.

So I stumbled after him, climbing the rope ladder and taking his hand as I reached the top. Screw my ego, I wanted to finish! It felt as if somebody has sucked out all of the oxygen from the air and my chest was tight. My body was already protesting in pain and my legs and arms thumped from the strain. We'd barely started and I was already knackered.

'Okay, monkey bars and a zip wire. Then I think there's a rope to cross and we're done,' he said, then turned to me, 'You want to go first?'

Sighing, I nodded and jumped onto the monkey bars, using my momentum to swing two bars each time. When I was little, I used to love doing this – I used to watch the other kids being held up by their dad's and mine would yell at me to get a move on so we could go home and watch the football.

Yeah, my dad was a fanatic football fan. He passed away a few months ago, and my sister screwed herself off to a fancy university in the USA so I was given a nanny. She was bonny and had a little wrinkled face and knitting hands. Like a grandma, I guess she _was _my grandma now... We were close, quite close. She became a bit like family, I guess...

Shaking myself out of my stupor, I concentrated on swinging across to each bar.

I landed cat-like at the end. Putting my hands on the ends of the bar, that was hung over the top of the rope, I jumped. I could see others finishing at the ends of my vision – Sophie and Peter had just stumbled over their line and had collapsed on the floor.

Seeing the landing pad ahead, I hit my feet off the side to stop me from passing over it and dropping into the water. I bent my knees as it swayed and turned to see Jordan setting off on the zip wire. Spinning, I looked at the wire in front of me before grabbing the one above me and putting my feet on the one below. Scurrying along, I tried not to think about the others who were also close to finishing.

Clumsily, putting my feet one after another on the wire, I reached the end and slid down the end slide.

...

Yes, a slide. There really was a slide.

These people really _were _strange.

Wolf glared at me as I started to stretch out and Eagle winked, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

'Nice choice of lingerie today, Gray,' Eagle said loudly and I glared at him, my face turning a horrible shade of magenta.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am _never _going to wear a lacy black bra _ever _again while I'm here... Even if Wolf did give him a dirty look and punched the back of his head, yelling something about 'inappropriate' and 'little teenaged girls' and 'hormones' – I will _never _do that again.

Jogging over to Chloe, she grinned at me and said, 'Well, at least it wasn't that pink and frilly one I gave y-'

I tackled her to the floor.

xxxx

_Hey! Nearly 3k words! Compared to what it was before [about 2k], I think I improved it!_

_So... yeah, you know what to do!_

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[24thJune2011]]****


	3. Chapter Three

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Three**_

_Disclaimer: No, I don't own Alex._

xxxx

It wasn't long before Acantha and Andrew were given kitchen duty and were told to sit on the floor and shut up. They finished five minutes after everybody else.

'Right, brats,' Bison announced, a twisted sort of smile on his face, 'We're going to put you all through an... _endurance _task.'

That smile really did look quite painful at the moment.

He continued, 'Quite simple. Take a partner and do the course in the lowest time. Questions?'

We stared blankly at him and the 'smile' grew... Okay, now it _really _looked painful.

'Isn't that painful?' I blurted before biting down on my tongue. _Smart, good going Jen._

Snorting, he gave me a disdainful look before biting out, 'Of course it is, it's for endurance.'

I gave him a weird look, 'Uh... right.'

I didn't blame him for giving me a strange look back, 'That's what it's called, isn't it? Doesn't the name _say _anything?'

_Smile... SM-I-ILE... Sm-i-le..._

'No, not particularly,' I replied after a second of thinking, wondering what on ear- _OH!_, 'Uh, never mind.'

Rolling his eyes, his smile dropped and said, deadpan, 'Since you're so eager to have a go then, get up here and take your pick of partner.'

Jumping up, I looked over my friends and smirked at my target. I announced, 'Tulip, get up 'ere!'

She glared at me before getting to her feet gracefully and wandering over to where I was standing. She flipped her silvery hair before grabbing a bobble out of her pocket and tying it up. Tulip could be such a drama queen at times, it was amusing.

Meerkat waved us over to an exit in the clearing, and we trotted behind him.

'You weren't talking about the endurance course, were you?' She asked, a smile playing around her lips.

Giving her a look, I grinned, 'Actually, I was talking about his smile.'

She froze for a second before she burst out laughing and choked out, 'Just be glad _he _didn't know what you were going on about – you would have been dead five times over by now! You really need to learn how to control that mouth of yours.'

I opened my mouth, eyebrows furrowed, before freezing and shutting it again as she sauntered ahead of me. The cheek! I'm not saying I'm not grateful for that, goodness knows what would've happened if he actually knew what I was going on about... Thinking about it, she is sort of right. What if he _did _find out?

Insert shudder here.

'C'm'ere girlies!' He, Meerkat, called from up ahead and I looked up to our task. Tulip blanched.

The first part looked... a bit more than challenging. It was Joseph's Ladder, about thirty foot or twenty foot high. For any of you who don't know what a Joseph's Ladder is, it's a collection of large logs which start out close together at the bottom and get more spread apart as you reach to the top – they were connected by large wires drilled through at each ends of them, they were nailed into the floor and hanging from a metal bar at the top.

If that doesn't make sense... look it up! Google wasn't made for nothing!

Squinting, I could see a rickety bridge near the top log which led us away over a wooden wall.

I gulped.

Oh, and better yet, the safety mechanisms! Instead of a proper, full-body harness we were meant to have... okay, I hate them, but it's the law! Well, instead of them, it was one strap that wrapped around our stomachs tightly which was attached to another piece of wire, which led to the top metal bar and back down to Meerkat.

Tulip looked like she was going to pass out, but was stretching. I copied her – her family usually done this sort of thing at Oasis. No, CenterParcs. Yeah, that's the place. Anyway, as I was saying, she was pretty darn good at this. I just hoped that I didn't drag her down... much.

My dad may have been in the army, but he hadn't exactly been shoving me onto Joseph Ladder's every day.

'Get ready!' Meerkat called to us and we stood in position. Tulip was on the left, I was on the right.

'GO!' He yelled, I could practically hear him grinning, and I flung myself at the second log, climbing up on top of it easily. Tulip was already jumping for her third one.

I flung my arms up around the third log, wrapped my legs around it, and then spun myself on top before jumping up and repeating the whole process again. It wasn't long before we were three from the top and struggling to clamber onto the wooden logs.

Slipping slightly, I jumped and flung my arms and then swung my legs up on top. Then I fell.

Letting out a small yelp, Tulip looked down from the top of the ladder and grinned at me swinging upside down from the log – my legs wrapped around it stopped me from dropping to my death.

This was the second time this day that I was upside down!

Glaring at her, I ignored the erratic beating of my heart and swung myself back on top. Tulip had swung upside down to offer her hands as help to get up and I accepted it gratefully.

'Okay, we're up,' Tulip said cheerfully, 'Now, onto the swinging bridges!'

It was basically, for both of the bridges, two pieces of rope parallel to each other to the other side and, from them, two pieces of rope connected to each step. They rattled in the small breeze and I stood up on the log shakily, grabbing the metal above me for support before I jumped onto the first step.

Tulip was doing the same, and fiddling with the safety rings to switch. Cursing, I turned to my right and attached myself to the bridge rope that was high above us and disconnected myself from the ladder. It swung back down to the base of Joseph's Ladder without a glance back.

_Thanks, rope, for all your help!_

Grimacing, I turned and jumped from each one to the next – near the end; I stumbled and flung myself to the finish. I was surprised to see solid ground rather than a platform and looked back. We'd crossed a gorge.

'Snap out of it, woman!' Tulip flung a lump of mud in my direction whilst fiddling with the piece of rope around of herself, 'Untie yourself!'

Fumbling with the lock around my waist, I wondered how long we'd spent already and sped up.

'You better not ditch me!' Tulip yelled as we sprinted our way to the edge of our vision, it had dipped.

It was a mud slide. I smirked at Tulip before grabbing her arm and jumping over the edge.

My dad really had made me some sort of fearless beast... okay, maybe not totally fearless but I wasn't whimpering. Okay, but not _much_!

Tulip squealed as the wind whipped against our faces, blurring our vision so that when the ground evened out we stumbled off the edge. I laughed, giddy from the rush of adrenaline.

'I'm going to kill you!' She screamed, face slightly flushed and hand over where her heart is.

Shrugging, I rushed forward to the zip wire and quickly fastened myself to it before setting off. Tulip was next to me, having tied herself to it quicker than I had. It wasn't long before we sped off the ground and over another gorge – but this one wasn't as deep and had a river flowing through it.

'Look!' She pointed at a small post that was struggling to stand up in the water. It had a small platform with a few pieces of coloured rope sitting on top, 'Try and grab one!'

'Are we meant to?' I yelled back at her, looking back at her.

She looked unsure but hollered back, 'This is the course, aint it?'

Taking what she said into mind, I swung myself back so that my legs were pointing upward and my head was flung down to face the water. Swiping blindly at the incoming post, I grabbed one before straightening up and stumbling onto the cliff edge.

Disorientated, my head spun slightly while I fiddled with the safety knot.

Tulip grabbed my arm as soon as I was unhooked and pulled me along to the 'last task'... well, that's what it said on the sign. Gaining my balance, I stumbled to a stop when she froze in front of me. Looking at the last hurdle, I groaned at the machine they had put in place before the large 'Finish!' banner.

There was one centre piece, made out of several parts. Turning clockwise was the set of stairs, which had gaps in the middle of them for the oncoming pieces of wood spinning anti-clockwise. Then, once at the top of the stairs, you had to clamber onto one of the spinning pieces of wood to get to the end of it and jump out onto a landing pad on the other side.

'Fucking retards!' She stamped her foot, glaring.

_She stamped her foot._

Any other time, I would have laughed at her until dawn broke but I probably would have done that if she hadn't. Or if I had picked Leah instead.

I chose to take a shot at it – later on, I would probably regret my impulsiveness.

Diving onto the second step, I rolled upwards to avoid the oncoming wood. I waited for a second before getting to my feet, still crouching, and pegged it up a couple of steps. Ducking as I stumbled, the next log swung right above my head. It didn't take me long to figure out that I had to run to the top, which I did – but I had earned myself a few bruises and a clobbered ankle.

Getting on my knees, I shuffled along as fast as I could on a swinging wooden pole and got to the end before looking up to see the incoming landing pad. I swear that they sped it up just for me!

I braced myself, already wincing, before jumping off and rolling onto the dirty blue landing pad. My foot was numb, I must have landed on it funny.

A set of hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off the mat before I was squished by a flying Tulip. Who lay still and groaned into the mat.

Laughing, and disorientated, I yelled, 'Face-plant!'

xxxx

So, five minutes later, we had been looked over by Snake, the medic in K Unit, and announced that we were fine. Just a _tad_ disorientated – thank you Kathryn obvious! Tulip told me it was _Captain Obvious_. I pushed her off the log.

Wolf snapped at us our time, 7 minutes and 32 seconds, to which we cheered half heartedly while we attacked each other with sticks, holding them like swords.

Nate and Peter stumbled through next, both having gained bloody noses somehow throughout the course. Their times was 5 minutes 58 seconds. Damn.

Tulip raised an eyebrow at me, 'They're lads, Jen, what d'ya expect?'

'Did I say that out loud?' I groaned, falling back onto the floor with my eyes closed, 'Shnufflepuffle.'

'Shnufflepuffle?' A warm, amused voice said above us, but I couldn't be bothered to open my eyes so I stayed still, 'Nice to be ignored.'

I groaned, 'Who is it?'

They, the person who interrupted my throbbing limbs and before-lunch snooze, chuckled, 'Your conscience. It's Nate.'

Creaking my eyes open, I groaned as Tulip replied, 'Well, Nate, you're blocking our sun. We're getting a tan before we go back home, y'know.'

He shuffled beside me, dark brown hair lightly ruffled and hazel eyes sparkling with amusement. He lay back and announced, 'I'm not getting much sun.'

'Then take your shirt off.'

Shit. Did I just say that?

Tulip snorted, 'And that will do what, pray tell?'

I shrugged, eyes now open and staring at the trees above us, 'Entertain us while he freezes on the floor?'

She snickered, 'It'll entertain _you _alright.'

I thumped her, blushing slightly, 'Sick minded person.'

'Don't worry,' Nate chuckled, I'd forgotten he was there, 'All girls want to see me shirtless.'

Sitting up, I wacked him over the head, 'PEDOPHILE!'

He grinned up at me and Tulip snorted again, I glared at them both before muttering something about paedophiliac minded children and perverted boys before lying back down. What can I say... he's cute!

We lay in silence for a few seconds before he chuckled slightly, muttering, 'I'd prefer sexy but whatever swings your way.'

That is how I was now chasing after him with a stick, to the amusement of the soldiers and Tulip. Apparently Peter didn't think so as he was too absorbed cheering on Claudia and Acantha to cross the final challenge.

Pansies.

'Get your arse _back here_!' I hollered after him, '_Nate!_'

What can I say? I have a temper when I'm tired!

'STOP! NOW!' Wolf roared at us, face livid. I dropped the stick and we froze, turning to him as he continued to yell, 'GO PICK UP STICKS! JUMP INTO A LAKE! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!'

Oo-o-oh, Mr-Sir-Wolfey swore!

I am _so _glad I didn't say that out loud, I thought to myself as we hurried back to Tulip – she was watching us in amusement, grinning like a cat that had caught a mouse. Well... I wasn't going to say I looked forward to tonight.

Stupid teasing. Stupid knowing. Stupid friends. Gah.

This camp was going to kill me!

xxxx

_Third chapter re-done! Whoopee doo!_

_Review, my lovlies!_

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[24thJune2011]]****


	4. Chapter Four

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Four**_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Alex._

xxxx

After everybody had their turn, in which time I tried to kill Nate... uh... five times? Well, I did succeed in plaiting his hair – yes, I plaited his hair... Don't give me that look! It looked really bad on him and we all had a good laugh when he went up to Eagle and pretended to be gay. That was until Eagle started to flirt back and... Gah. Some people take it too far for my liking - even though Nate's face _was _priceless.

Anyway – they'd told us to bugger off to the kitchens while they went off to... well, we didn't know because Eagle didn't get a chance to finish his sentence.

'I'm dying,' Chloe moaned quietly as we started to jog back.

I smiled sympathetically at her and kept my smirk in check – she didn't need to be reminded of her fantabulous finish.

'Well, we better get over it 'cause this is probably too slow. C'mon.'

Surprisingly, this was Leah.

I nodded, 'Yeah, she's right – just look at Wolf's face.'

'Very pretty, isn't it?' Tulip said softly as if she meant it.

We snickered and started to jog a little faster.

'Two options for the wedding girls,' She continued, 'Does he look better in a peach or white dress?'

I smirked, shaking my head, 'Bad mental images, Tulip. Do please shut up.'

Chloe shuddered, 'I _really _don't want to think about Tulip and Wolf getting married; that is just scary.'

Tulip faked gasped and I started to drown out their bickering over a) if she'd old enough to marry b) if she's old enough to marry _Wolf_ c) which sex position would suit them best.

_God. I did __**not **__want to imagine this._

'Oh, God! Bad mental images!' Chloe said loudly, covering her ears.

Tulip and Leah smirked at her and I shook my head, some things would never change.

xxxx

We rounded the corner to the mess hall a few minutes later, after some embarrassing moments involving Fox and Eagle and _a lot _of explaining to do. We came face to face with sixteen teens covered head to toe in mud outside of the lunch hall. Yak and Leopard stood in front of them, glaring with their arms crossed – maybe it wasn't such a good thing to laugh.

I spotted Farah, which was harder than it sounds... she _is_ covered in mud!, talking to Lottie and Ella from E Unit and grinned wolfishly at her. It was quite amusing.

She rolled her eyes, flipped me the bird and turned her back at me – but I could tell she was smiling.

'So... what do we do now?' Chloe asked, looking around perplexed.

Apparently, we needn't figure that out as Sam and Nate came bouncing up to us.

'We're waiting for the other groups, we got told,' Sam said, smiling.

Nate snorted, 'More like we had it yelled at us. I don't think my ear drums will ever be the same.'

He caught me looking and shot me a grin, I blushed and looked away. Tulip shot me a superior glance and was struggling not to laugh. Blech – leave me alone! Just because I want to-

Leah smirked, 'Sounds like fun.'

Sometimes, I also love them from saving my dignity though.

The back of my head prickled slightly and I turned around half-way, but shrugged it off when I saw nobody.

Probably cameras in the SAS, right? Stupid people...

I peeked out of the corner of my eye and, as per usual, there was nothing there.

Rolling my shoulders, I tuned back into the conversation with my friends. I was paranoid.

xxxx

_**The **__USS had congregated, in what appeared to be a run-down hotel at Sunderland, England. A small man, no bigger than five foot tall, entered in a shabby attire; a crinkled grey shirt, that was supposedly once white; a dark blue tie that was hung loosely around his neck and had multiple stains on; he had a putrid jacket the shade of burgundy that was fraying at the ends and matched his trousers, though without the mud splatters and water soaked edges; he also had on a pair of sandals that had duct-tape wound around them each to keep them on his feet; and, finally, a battered suitcase of a sandy-brown that had many leaflets peeping out of the edges and sheets nearly falling out at the close._

_All in all, the usual type of man who would enter The Ryhnstone. _

_The stubby man ruffled his mop of dark hair before walking up to the counter, 'Is the McQueen in?'_

_Not one person in the bar understood his strange language, but [apparently] the bar tender Ted did as he nodded, 'Right up back, Jared.'_

'_Jared' nodded and shuffled along to the staircase, stumbling as he went up._

_Eight people before him had said the exact same thing, exactly twenty eight minutes and thirteen second before each other – they were a force to be reckoned with._

_The shifty man who had entered now could pass as a billionaire, though he was close to it, as the mask, hair and costume was taken off and he stood upright for the first time in three hours – he knocked on the door second from the back once and waited._

_A few seconds later, the lock unlinked and he entered the room._

_There were three women and six men altogether, including himself, sitting around a large oval wooden desk with papers in front of them._

_Not all the world was involved with the United Secret Service, some decided to keep themselves to themselves. _

_A woman in her mid-thirties unwrapped a humbug and popped it into her mouth, her hair tied back from her face effectively making her look ten years older and her linen suit neither doing anything for her. This woman was known as Tulip Jones, Military Intelligence 6 Executive Head – and it wasn't Blunt they invited in the first place, since he barely understood the meaning of 'spy'. He'd rather thought of the word 'tool' or 'weapon'._

'_We believe,' she started, 'that Yassen Gregorovitch may be working with a Snakehead group. They want something, but we don't know what it is yet. All we know is that it has something to do with this girl.'_

_She passed the photos down and each of the members nodded at the figure before placing the brunette on the desk in front of them._

'_Her well-being has been promised by the SAS, but we need to figure this out fast. She goes home in two weeks and we need this solved and closed by that time.' She looked around at each of them, 'Take a file; we need this done as soon as possible.'_

'_Kattie' nodded, to her right, and said, 'Right you are Lauren...'_

_Yet, no matter how trained they were, none of them noticed the camera swivel and focus on the photo of the girl._

xxxx

Lunch was a rather pointless affair; well, other than the fact that George and Jake were dared to lap dance for Wolf and Oryx. Luckily for them, the bell had rung and we were ordered to clear off our food if we had any left, that was relevant to all of us, stack our 'plates' and then congregate outside the double doors. By 'plates', they mean those grey trays.

We were separated from J Unit and were assigned to work with D Unit – Panther, a member of D Unit, was looking rather flustered and uncomfortable. Grace was clinging onto his arm and batting her eyelids, practically _draping _herself over him.

Apparently, Addax [D Unit's leader – HAH! I remembered] had already yelled at her beyond measure and still hadn't gotten the message that they were _Off Limits_.

'Right, we're doing one small task before dinner.' Alligator smiled slowly, looking quite insane, 'We have partnered you up this time ourselves and you _can't _switch – we'll know and make you do it again. So,' he clapped his hands together and I saw a few people flinch, 'Any questions?'

'We'll be on our way then,' Shark said, smirking slightly, 'Your _partners _are shown on the board, then take a map and compass.'

The soldiers ran off, much like they did this morning, laughing and sniggering their way into the distance. They'd left us – again, however this time with _partners_ rather than coloured pieces of cloth.

Chloe and I shared looks as we jogged over to the bulletin board, where a flyer had been stapled to it. It read:

_**UNIT K/UNIT D AFTER LUNCH LIST:**_

_Parkinson, A Armstrong, G_

_Featherlite, T Glendenning, E_

_Steabler, L Mellett, J_

_Pickett, P Martin, E_

_Trudey, S Steel, L_

_Hourigan, C Taylor, J_

_Redman, L Thompson, D_

_Gray, J Luna, A_

I spun and grinned at Ava. She returned the smile. As we grabbed a map, she said, 'Thank God, last time I was stuck with _Grace_.'

'Sounds like fun, c'mon,' I spotted a few people setting off, 'Let's try and get there first.'

She nodded and we looked at the map and, after a few seconds, started to jog off in an easterly direction. Also the area which was quite near the gorge we had crossed before... Uh, hope for the best and cross your fingers?

_We're going to die!_

'You know where we're heading for, don't you?' Ava said reluctantly as the sound of gallons of rushing water met our ears.

I nodded and she exclaimed, 'We're _meant _to be _safe_!'

'It is,' I said and she gave me a 'are-you-on-drugs' look, I added, 'We might just end up in hospital or paralyzed for the rest of our lives.'

She snorted, 'How... reassuring.'

I grinned but it immediately vanished as we stepped passed a large trunk and saw what we had to do.

There was a barrier at about ankle height and one at our head height to stop us from falling to our deaths, and a little past that were harnesses that looked around about eighty years old which were attached to a wire above that was connected to the other side.

It was quite simple really, hop from spot to spot to get from this side to the other. A bit like toadstools, except the small circular pads were connected to each other rather than individually to the floor... That would be a bit hard to do, considering the large river beneath us; I estimated about thirty foot down? So, yeah, simple task but did I mention my lack of balance?

Okay, so maybe it isn't _that _bad but this took skill! Speaking of, there goes Sam a little further upwards. His arms flailed a bit before he fell off the first plastic pad and started to dangle underneath.

Shaking my head, I stepped over the barrier and tied myself into the harness – Ava seemed to have frozen in her spot. Well, she at least she seemed to be standing up of her own accord. Slipping through the second fence, I held onto the wooden edge behind me as a gust of wind blew down the gorge.

That was most likely why Sam lost his- wait, where'd he go?

Looking towards his area, he was nowhere to be found... Lewis, his partner, was laughing. Quite obnoxiously, really, but I still couldn't figure to _why _he was laughing.

Oh.

_Oh._

Right... okay. Sam had been dropped into the river, and was now currently screaming bloody murder. I guess that's what happened if you failed. Lewis however now understood the consequences of falling... yet there was no harness, so he couldn't.

Stupid SAS. I could have let Ava do it!

...Nevermind, I'll get on with it.

Grimacing, I paused before springing onto the first pad. Ouch. That would leave a bruise. I landed on my chest, which was currently stinging from the impact. Brushing my wildly flailing hair out of my face, I shakily got into a crouching position before flinging myself to the next one.

Grappling for the edge, I clung onto the flimsy plastic board that I had chosen to catapult onto and dangled above the raging river as it flipped over. _Shit. _Maybe the right fork wasn't the _best _one to try and jump onto. There was practically nothing I could do... besides from try and fling myself back on top, which ended quite badly.

Yes, quite badly.

Either way I ended up dangling below like a loser. _Crack._

My stomach dropped and the wind whipped my face as I plummeted downwards.

xxxx

_Not much has changed, but I liked most of this chapter :3 sorry to people who don't!_

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[24thJune2011]]****


	5. Chapter Five

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Five**_

_D: No, I don't own Alex._

xxxx

Was the river made out of concrete? No. But it sure as hell felt like it.

My bones shuddered as my descent slowed dramatically as I plummeted through the ice cold, black water. I hovered underwater for a second before the trapped air in my lungs carried me above the water's surface. Gasping like a drowned zebra [please don't ask me why I thought of that] I clumsily pushed my hair away from my face with my numb hands and blinked rapidly to try and get rid of the water from my eyes.

I could make out a figure in the distance, on the shoreline, jumping up and down and waving at me. Noticing the ginger hair I started to try and co-ordinate my disorientated arms and legs to swim towards that area. The current was quite strong so I was practically swimming sideways, but I eventually made it.

My feet bumped into the ground and I started to trudge uphill towards where they were waiting, getting colder each second, the more I came out of the water. Water streamed from my clothes and, once I was completely out of the water, my shoes squiged from the amount of it it had soaked up. Shivering violently I tried to brace myself against the wind which was picking up and joined the others.

Sam grinned brightly at me and stepped closer before I could talk to Chloe, 'You look like a rat!'

I glared at him and replied, 'Sh-shut the f-fuck up.'

Laughing he flung an arm around me and started rubbing my arm, 'You shouldn't be nasty to a person trying to help you. See, you're warming up already!'

My glare intensified but he was right, he was quite warm.

Chloe grinned at me, her torso wrapped in an army jacket, 'Aw, don't you two look so _sweet _together!'

I opened my mouth to reply but somebody beat me to it.

'Okay,' Fox announced, clapping loudly once and rubbing his hands together. We all spun to face him and he smiled – a lot more friendlier than any other of the soldiers had been before, 'So, this morning you lot were put through two endurance tests. You should be able to recall them, yes?'

He paused for a second and we nodded slowly. You couldn't blame us, it was sort of freaking us out.

'Yes, well, this afternoon we're testing skills. And _that, _up there, _that_ performance was disturbingly bad.' He shot us all a small glare, something we were more used to, 'We're meant to be grading you to put you into new Units but if all of the others are going to give performances like that, this is going to be quite pointless.' He took a large sigh, his shoulders deflating slightly as he took all of our sheepish expressions in.

'We've never done anything like this before, sir,' Sam spoke up, shrugging slightly as he held Fox's gaze, 'Heck, we don't even know _why _we need to be good at anything like this. You can't really blame us for being bad at it.'

'Yeah,' Grace pouted, nodding her head like a bobble-doll and putting a hand on her hip, which was rather comical to say the least, 'We haven't even been told _why _we're doing this so what's the deal?'

I rolled my eyes slightly at her antics but kept my mouth buttoned.

'Look,' Cub snapped and our eyes fixated on his smaller frame, but not by much. His eyes were dark and narrowed in our direction, 'We're here to train you, end of story. We didn't expect you to be so worthless, we had higher standards. What Fox is saying is that now we have to have new criteria to put you into new units.'

Fox took over from here after a stern look in Cub's direction, even though he just shrugged it off anyway, 'That's why we need you to try your best, okay? The next task for today is orienteering. All you have to do is find your way back, through this wood to the other side to get back to the showers and cabin. We have some spare clothes here,' he pointed to two large tubs behind them, 'and also bags you can lend to put your wet clothes in. Once you're all ready, we'll start.'

'You mean, get changed _right here_?' Chloe blurted, eyes wide and cheeks tinted pink, 'B-but-'

'Get on with it,' Cub snapped at her before spinning and stalking away.

'I'll be back soon, ' Fox nodded before rushing off after him.

Chloe glared after them, 'PMS-ing much?'

Sighing I watched as the others didn't move a muscle and reached over to tug on her wrist, 'Tell me about it, I think he's on his man-period.'

'Man-period?' she quirked an eyebrow at me and allowed me to tug her forward, towards the barrels, 'What the _hell _is a man-period?'

Pondering for a second as I put one hand under the lid and the other on the side of the barrel I replied, 'Look it up in an urban dictionary, that'll tell you.' The lid snapped off and I dropped it to the floor before peering inside, 'But, for now, try and find something _decent _in here to wear.'

Chloe grimaced and held her nose dramatically as she stood on her tiptoes and looked down over it, 'Is that even legal?'

'I don't know, you tell me,' I yanked out a purple top that looked big enough to fit Sam, me _and _Wolf in and flung it onto her face.

I laughed at her as she squealed loudly and scrabbled at the material to discard it onto the floor. Her face was flushed and her eyes were narrowed into slits in my direction.

Spinning and tossing out an old pair of muddy cargo shorts I muffled my laughter and continued the hunt for clothes that would be fit for a teenaged girl... if there _were _any in here.

'Ew,' Chloe cried, yanking a pink lycra bra out of the tub and dropping it hastily, 'That is disgusting!'

'Well apparently the SAS don't think so,' I smirked at her and she pushed me. I knew she only meant it lightly but with my current lack of balance from almost-nearly drowning I ended up falling over – into the tub.

Sweat.

Ew.

Boisterous laughter echoed in the small, confined space and Chloe peered over the top of the barrel. I glared until she subsided into sniggers and commented, oh so angelically, 'Want some help there, Jen?'

I stood up and pushed her away from the barrel so I could climb out, probably blushing an unattractive tomato colour, before using both hands to help me jump onto the pebbles. I probably reeked of sweat by now but that wasn't what I was worried about. No.

What _I _was worried about was the humungous spider that was currently clinging to my right arm.

Chaos ensued.

Screaming the loudest I could, I batted the ugly thing away from me and started shaking my arm violently. It wasn't long for things to go absolutely ballistic though, things just kept on escalating. Chloe raised the alarm by squealing 'TARANTULA!' at the top of her lungs to which the girls started to run off in different directions and the boys tried to act 'cool' until they saw the size of the thing and then Chloe picked up a cloth and started to whack the thing and then Sam came over with a wet t-shirt to try and drown it and then ended up accidently splashing Chloe so she screamed and thought it was the spider and then fell backwards against the tubs which then fell over and then all the clothes spewed out and then Cub and Fox came back and then we were all told to shut up, get in line or else we'd get kitchen duty for the rest of the week.

Ahem.

Yeah, all of that happened because I laughed at Chloe in the beginning. In the long term, that is. In the short term, this would probably be... their fault. For supplying the clothes. Or maybe... whatever, but it was somebody's fault.

'Pick some clothes, get them on before we come back _again_,' Cub's eyes flashed dangerously, again, as he glared at us, 'Or I swear to damned _God_-'

'_Spider!_' I screamed loudly, pointing at a spot near Chloe's foot. She screamed too, jumping back but Sam, being the saviour that he is, stomped on it with his foot. I kept my eyes on the floor, afraid of what I would look up to. Nothing but the sound of the rushing river could be heard.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

'_What _did I say?' I recognised the voice that was currently whispering into my ear and resisted the urge to shiver. I wasn't sure whether it was because I was a) scared out of my wits or b) immensely attracted to him. I'd rather go for a) to be honest with you. I froze instead, hoping to God that he couldn't hear my heart thumping.

'That was a question, it requires an answer.' He hissed again and I could feel my face flush slightly and my hands start to shake. _Jesus _it was so freaking loud, how the hell could he _not _hear it?

Swallowing loudly I replied, to the now _extremely _interesting pebbles, 'To shut up.' It came out like a question and I added quickly, 'Sir.'

Silence ensued before a light pressure lifted my chin up to look at him. My brain couldn't even process anything but breathing at this point and those stupid, chocolate brown eyes that didn't even seem to comprehend what the hell they were doing to me.

_ . ._

'Look at me when I talk to you,' he eventually muttered before taking a step back, 'And kitchen duty, tonight.'

'Yes sir,' I muttered in reply, wishing that people would stop _looking _at me. My cheeks were probably on fire by now, I could feel the heat radiating from them and at the bottom of my eyes. My body felt flushed but strangely cold now that he'd stepped away.

On the bright side, I could now breathe again and get oxygen to my air-deprived body – even my heart beat was starting to slow down already.

'Get your clothes, we'll be back soon,' Fox repeated, clearing his throat loudly to get our attention before nodding and turning away. Cub had already started to walk away.

_Shit_, he was even better close up.

Chloe giggled and I snapped my head in her direction.

'You two may as well of been shagging for all of that sexual ten- _oomf!_' I flung a bundle of socks at her to get her to shut up and spun away to hide my red face. She returned to giggling and searching for clothes and I looked around for something that I could wear.

No matter what, I vowed to myself, I will _not _let myself like Cub. I will _not _let myself _like _Cub. _I will not _let _myself _like _Cub_.

Yet... no matter how many times I said it to myself, the butterflies still kept on rampaging around in my stomach and my skin still burned from where he'd touched it.

xxxx

Fifteen minutes later I was lined up next to Chloe dressed in black _Nike _shorts, a three-quarter arm-lengthed navy top, white ankle socks and a pair of ancient coming-away-from-the-rim _Adidas _trainers. I'd also taken a blue bag and shoved my clothes in there before slinging it onto my back so that I wouldn't have to worry about it falling off.

Chloe passed me a bobble and a large comb after she'd done her hair and I started to try and put my hair up into a ponytail. See, the bright side of having Grace with you is that she always carries hair and make-up supplies. She was a canny bairn at heart **1**.

'I just got word from Sam,' Chloe said, turning to face me, 'That tomorrow we're going to be doing 'Physical Fighting',' she put air quotations around the words as she said them, 'tomorrow morning before lunch and then, after 'lunch',' she used more air quotes, 'we're going on a 'short walk'.' She finished her third set of air quotes, looking exasperated, 'And then, for the next two weeks, we'll be training. Whoop-de-_freaking _-doo... But I guess that could just be bull from goodness-knows-who.'

I smiled sarcastically, finishing off my hair and passing the comb over to Grace again, 'I'll second that statement but, on the bright side, at least you won't have kitchen duty tonight so you can just konk out straight away.'

She smirked but we were interrupted, like before, by Fox as he clapped his hands once to get our attention.

'Right, now,' he announced, smiling almost genuinely at us, 'Each of you have, by your unawares, picked your number in turn to start. Flick over to look at the back of your map, who's number one?'

Grabbing my map from my back pocket I unfolded it and fipped over the A4 sheet to reveal a big, fat, red number 2. _Crap._

Or... good. I'm not sure which to think at the moment, I felt a little like puking.

'Oh. My. _God!_' Grace squawked, face unnaturally white, '_NO!_'

A lot of arguing and squealing later, Cub got her into the forest by saying she'd be on kitchen duty for the rest of her stay here if she didn't go in.

'Number two?' Fox rang out and I raised my hand hesitatingly, 'Off you go then, Gray.'

Nodding nervously I headed out into forest is what direction I _hoped _was south-west.

'Good luck!' Chloe called after me as I slipped under a fallen branch. The sunlight faded quickly below the canopy of trees and even the sounds of the river faded into silence fast. Soon it was just me, the forest and silence. The floor was slippery and the trees were covered in moss which made it no easier to navigate myself around. All I knew, according to the map, is that if I kept on going south-west for three miles then I'll end up next to the martial arts barracks and I know how to get to the shower block from there.

The first obstacle was easy enough to spot – it was a fan propeller. The map was quite accurate to say the least, there was a _huge _drop from this spot of land I was standing on to the spot of land two foot away from me. At an estimate, I would say about a thirty foot drop.

Stuffing the map into my back pocket I shimmied into the poor excuse of a safety harness and strapped myself on, following the aged instructions that were pinned to the tree next to me, and hovered at the edge. I teetered for a second before stepping off bravely.

Okay... maybe not. Maybe I hung around for a minute, teetering over the edge, when a bird squawked and I accidently fell off. I ended up in a heap at the bottom, my legs having gave way when I hit the ground.

'Nugh.' I muffled, spitting out mud from my mouth and scrambling to my feet. I just wanted to get _out _of here.

And fast.

A prickling feeling had rose the hairs on my neck and my pace picked up, my hands fumbling with the lock and I started to walk away quickly from the area. I was being watched. There was no doubt about it. My skin felt clammy and my adrenaline was pumping, something was going to h-

'Woah!' The 'floor' caved inwards and I was swallowed up into the dark pit. I hit the floor below and blinked a few times as the trap covered itself up again.

For a group of men who couldn't be arsed with us, they sure put in plenty of effort to make these courses.

xxxx

**1 **to people who don't understand that, it means that she's a good kid at heart in other words :)

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[25thJune2011]]****


	6. Chapter Six

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Six**_

_D: I don't own Alex._

xxxx

_Thanks for the reviews/alerts/favs etc. Oh! And sorry about offending you [y'know who you are] about the Scotland comment :) Anyway, five reviews this time? Sorry to say but I think that 3/100 isn't too great :l_

xxxx

It took a while for my eyes to adjust but when they did, I was a little shocked to see Wolf and Eagle standing in the room with me. Obviously waiting for me to come around otherwise they wouldn't be standing there staring at me – or, so, I hope.

'Welcome to paintball!' Eagle announced, his voice bouncing around the room and echoing down the halls, flinging his arms above his head and spinning as if he were the King of Africa and this were his palace, 'What d'you think? Isn't the decor lov- _oof_.'

Wolf had hit him over the head and was now glaring at him, 'What he _means _to say is,' he turned back to face me, 'You get through this maze to the exit without getting shot five times and you pass. If not you fail and find another route from where we chuck you out from. Your _classmates_ are ready to shoot and if you find a gun and ammo, goodie for you. Any questions?' He asked sharply at the end as if daring me to speak.

I shook my head and added quickly when he opened his mouth again, 'No, sir.'

He shut his mouth and nodded before grabbing Eagle by the collar and disappearing down a corridor, 'The game starts now!'

I blinked a few times to process this before starting to jog towards a different path. I jogged down the hallway, trying not to gag on the scent of the wet earth around me, and peered around the corner – trying to be as silent as possible. There was a small light from the ceiling in this room but I still struggled to see the shapes inside of it. I could make out a few crates, tubs and then – by the right – silhouettes of my classmates. It was wrong of the SAS to choose them.

Twisting away I screamed down the other corridor quickly before flattening myself behind the box. As expected, they ran passed me quickly to try and shoot 'me'. I waited a moment before sprinting through and, using my hands against the opposite wall behind the boxes where they were sitting, grappled at the door handle and flung myself inside. Shutting the door behind me, I trapped myself in the pitch black and waited for my vision to return.

Before I had the chance to, however, my ears picked up voices coming towards me from the corridor to my right so I done what anybody else would do – I ran in the other direction. Which is what they wanted.

'_SHOOT!' _Somebody screamed and I flung myself to the side. I'd been shot twice on my leg and now it was starting to throb. This was why I hated paintball, I bruised too easily.

'Where is she?'

'Did we get her?'

'Guys! Shut up!'

'She left!'

'Oh my God, go after her, idiot!'

'I'm going this way!'

'Me too!'

'Spread out!'

I waited a few moments as the loud footsteps disappeared and I cursed myself to heaven and hell. I really wasn't cut out for this sort of thing, to be honest. I figured out why they couldn't see me and I thanked the boxes before crouching into sight and surveying the room.

There were two people left, a girl and a boy from what I could tell. They weren't too much into the game, really... a lot more interested in maybe finding out what tonsil hockey was but that was about it. Rolling my eyes I just made a mad dash for the corridor behind them and they were too startled to even comprehend what had happened until I had rounded the other corner.

'Oh my God, that was _your _fault!'

'Mine? You said-'

A door shut behind me and cut off their voices and I froze, now not capable to see anything at all. Listening to their breathing was hard, since it was all so shallow, but I estimated around about eight of them.

Ducking swiftly, I avoided a few shots and tried to do what I did before – only to find that there was no cover on this side and got shot two other times. No more chances. Flinging myself to the other side I grappled with a metal clasp and when something swung open, I took no other chances and dove into the confined space.

'Fire at will!' Somebody yelled and from inside the metal tunnel I was currently crawling in, the shots sounded like real bullets. Wincing at the sudden noise I rammed myself ahead faster and ended up breaking through to the other side, into daylight, and right next to the shower block.

Blinking rapidly, I just shook my head slightly before walking towards the door. What a day.

Shoving the door open I grinned at the only other occupant who was currently glaring at the mirror and cursing her hair and how it had gotten into a knot. She looked a mess: leaves and mud scraped into her hair, practically discolouring it beyond recognition; her make-up had ran down her face and some had even ended up on the tip of her nose and forehead; her clothes were caked in mud and grime, and some parts of it even torn in places; her shoes were discarded but her feet were also a strange mixture of red, from where they had been rubbed from her footwear, and brown from the muck her shoes hadn't been able to keep out.

'Chloe!' I grinned at her like a Cheshire cat and she gave my reflection in the grimy and cracked mirror a once-over, 'And don't give me that look, you barely look any better!'

She snorted, turning around and sticking her tongue out at me, 'Well, truthfully, at least you have no leaves on you. What happened to you, anyway? I ended up on some sort of freaking agility course, blech.'

Laughing I pulled my shoes off and shoved them onto the rack next to the door before moving towards the mirror, 'Paintball, can't you tell?' I motioned to the pink and purple splatters on my torso and leg, 'Though I am now wondering why they used pinks and purples... and why the SAS, of all people, would have these coloured paint balls.'

Chloe giggled, acting more like her cheery self and turning back to the mirror to return to picking leaves out of her hair, 'Well, now that you mention it...'

I laughed loudly before giving her a small shove, 'Where're the showers?'

'Through there, I think,' she motioned to a small corridor where it turned off to the right, 'Tell me if they have shampoo and stuff in there, okay?'

I nodded, 'Sure,' and trotted over. Turning the corner I barely had time to process what the hell I was looking at before I felt my face flush with embarrassment. Yet, for some bizarre reason, I didn't stop staring.

Nate smirked at me while grabbing his top, 'Close your mouth, you might catch a fly sweetheart.'

He shrugged his bag over his shoulder, carrying his top in one hand, and tapped the underside of my chin as he passed me – sniggering still. I didn't even move until I heard the door shut and then I groaned out loud, letting my face flush even more. Chloe started to giggle loudly for a second before whistling, 'What a show, ey?'

'Oh my God, shut _up_ Chloe!' I yelled before stomping into a shower cubicle. Her mad cackle followed me as I locked to door and started to strip for the shower.

Stupid boys with their stupid idiotic tendencies to not wear a shirt when females are around. Ugh!

Stepping into the shower part, I closed the shower curtain to protect my clothes and bag as I put it on full blast – trying to forget what had just happened.

xxxx

_Yes, I know it was pretty short and half of it probably made you think 'what the hell is she thinking' – but this is necessary for the plot and all that jazz. So cut my head off if you want and whatnot, but, please, review!_

_Anyhow, school starts in two days so I might not be exactly... focused solely on this. But don't give up on the story because I am definitely gunna finish it. I've been working on it for over half a year xL_

_VV REVIEW! VV_

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[25thJune2011]]****


	7. Chapter Seven

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Seven**_

_D: No, I don't own Alex._

xxxx

Laughing, Chloe and I entered the mess hall or dinner. We were the first ones in, except for the soldiers, so we got to pick first table out of the lot. We got some food, which looked slightly more edible and actually resembled what food should look like. Chloe seemed to have forgotten what had happened earlier, which I was relieved about, because my so-called "friends" would just _love _to tease me about this to no end. It doesn't help when you're trying to convince yourself that you don't like a certain somebody.

"So... you know when we get back?" Chloe said, shovelling a bit of rice into her mouth and not looking at me.

"Yeah, what about when we get back?" I raised an eyebrow, blowing on a forkful of spaghetti, trying to make eye contact with her.

She swallowed, looking down at her food as twiddling with her fork, "What exactly are you gunna do? Y'know... about your new boyfriend."

For once in a blue moon, Chloe was smirking. It shocked me so much that I just sat there gawping at her for a minute.

"And who _exactly_," I paused for a moment, my eyes narrowing and lowering my fork, "Is this new _boyfriend_?"

Looking up at me, she continued, "Oh, I think you and I are thinking about the same person."

Knowing exactly what she was thinking, I kicked her as hard I could. Jolting from the force of the impact, she burst out laughing and managed to knock half of her food off her plate at the same time.

Glowering at her, I moodily stabbed at my food. I didn't really think this through, considering I'm on kitchen duty later and I'll have to clean it up. Sighing loudly, I ignored the glowers of the soldiers to the best of my abilities and tried not to think about he-who-shall-not-be-named while continuing to eat my food.

Chloe wiped at her eyes, grinning and straightening up, "Oh don't be such a buzz kill, I'm on your side. You just need to accept the fact that you want to-"

"Do I want to hear the rest of that sentence, or should I block my ears?" Tulip slipped into the seat next to me, and Leah on the other side with Fae.

I hadn't noticed people coming in, but now that I had there were quite a few people around.

I glared at Chloe, "Yes, Chloe, what has your perverted mind got in store for us now?"

She rolled her eyes, grinning, "Just because you know I'm right, doesn't mean you have to glare at me. We're here to help you! You just need to accept it and then we can start. You just have to remember that we have a time scale."

"Oh are you two talking abou- OOMF." Leah glared at Fae, who had stuffed a sock into her mouth. I hoped it was clean.

Fae shot her a warning look, "You need to learn how to keep your voice down. Do you even _notice _how many people are listening to our conversation?" She ended up muttering under her breath and we all looked up from our table.

There were actually quite a lot of people listening in, you could tell by the silence at their tables and how some of them shuffled around to face the people on their table. Most of them were people from our school, but there were also a handful of soldiers who had nothing better to do either. If I didn't have kitchen duty, I would have just walked out to the cabin.

I rolled my eyes instead, and said, so every one of them could hear, "Well if they feel the need to listen to our lives because they haven't got one themselves, let them listen. There isn't much to say about it anyway."

There was a split second of silence before lots of other conversation started out, most likely about who we were talking about, and I returned to glaring at Chloe who had the conscious to look sheepish.

"Well, thank you for letting everybody know Chloe, my life seems to be getting better by the minute." I gave her the scariest smile I could before shovelling in another mouthful of the food.

She looked a little upset about that and Tulip glared at me, "Just because you're in a bad mood doesn't mean you get to be mean to us. She was just teasing."

I sighed, knowing she was right, and shoved my plate away before looking up at Chloe again, "I'm sorry Chloe, but I honestly just _don't _want to talk about it. Okay?"

She smiled at me, accepting my apology, and after a moment of silence they started up a conversation; leaving me to my thoughts that seemed to revolve around one person.

xxx

It was only until half ten did everybody clean out, and I was shaken awake roughly. I blinked rapidly, trying to focus on what was in front of me until I finally figured out it was somebody's face. I yelped, jumping back, while Eagle started roaring with laughter. I blinked wearily at him, trying to calm down my heartbeat.

Wolf appeared soon afterwards and pushed Eagle into the kitchen, through the 'S af On y' door before turning to me. Glaring, as usual, he handed me a cloth and spray and told me to get cleaning the tables. I think he took pity on me, since he didn't make me clean the floors. Maybe it was because I could barely stay on my feet, or the fact that Eagle gave me a heart attack – but either way I was grateful.

I started at the back corner and tried to think about getting it done as quickly as possible, without making any mistakes because I knew that even though he took pity on me, he wouldn't be happy if I didn't do a good job.

"No- _Eagle! Don't throw that!_"

Unfortunately, I don't have very fast instincts when I'm half-asleep but I still managed to duck in time for it to miss me and just hit the wall.

"Eagle! Get _back _here!"

I turned in time to see one of the other soldiers start chasing after Eagle around the kitchen. It was the first time I noticed somebody else, laughing, in the corner of the kitchen. I couldn't help but stare at Cub laughing, it lit up his entire face and erased his normal dark demeanour. It really wasn't until he looked over at me that I noticed that I'd just been standing there and staring at him. Blushing to the root, I spun away as quickly as I could and went back to cleaning the tables.

He was so _not _helping me get over my_ small_... _minescule, itsy-bitsy_ crush on him.

Especially when I could feel his eyes on the back of my head until I practically ran out of the door.

xxx

I slept like a rock when I got back, which I was sort of glad for because it meant that I didn't get a chance to dream. However the draw-back was that Eagle got to wake me up again, which is not a very pleasant experience since I screamed again, which then woke everybody else up. He was still laughing when he got outside.

I jumped down the ladder and quickly used the bathroom before anyone else got out of bed, and even though I only took a minute they were still all yelling at me to get out. And while I finished pulling on my clothes, Eagle decided to pop around the corner of the door again to remind us that we had training today. Since Leah was getting changed, she screamed and grabbed the nearest towel to hide herself and Tulip decided to fling a clock at him. Fortunately it missed, but he seemed to find it quite amusing since he laughed as if there was no tomorrow.

It didn't take long to get us out the door, but we still had to jog down to the mess hall to make it on time. People seemed to visibly relax when they saw us, and we thought we were all on time until Bison had to ruin it by pointing out that Gracie wasn't here yet.

She turned up a moment later and Oryx barked at her, "Where've you been Armstrong? You're late!"

"Oh, am I?" She looked blankly at him, "Sorry, sir." Unfortunately, sir didn't seem to think she was sorry enough and demanded we meet them where we would start, so while they took the shortcut we had to run through the woods to try and not be late.

"Ugh, I swear to god if they make us work as hard as we did yesterday I won't think twice about shoving them all off a cliff," Leah grumbled, visibly more distressed than she normally is.

Tulip smiled sympathetically at her as we started jogging, "Is it that time of the month?"

Leah grumbled what we took as a 'Maybe' and she even cracked half a smile when we all laughed at her reaction.

"Guys, we really need to hurry up, I don't like being near the back," Chloe shot looks around us, noticing that we were, indeed, near the back of the pack with the rest of the sluggish pack. The leaders were already out of sight so we decided to speed up to catch up to the middle group.

Fae was happily bouncing around, which I couldn't fathom why until Chloe told me that she'd snuck a mars bar into her jacket pocket. I was fearful for when the mars bar would stop working though, 'cause I knew that she was just going to drop like a sack of potatoes.

Fortunately, it didn't take that much longer to get there – but we were still out of breath, and sweat must have been dripping down my face because I kept having to wipe it away. My fitness had dropped dramatically since my dad died, since I wasn't pushed anymore to do daily exercise. If I hadn't stopped exercising, I probably would have been at the front of the pack and barely worn out.

Shaking the thoughts out of my head, I focused on the buildings in front of us. There were eight 'tents', make-shift buildings that were easy to put up but very useful, that had signs at the door to each one. There was French and Spanish, Italian and German, hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, shooting range, fitness training, medical training, and the last tent had no sign on it.

We were soon split up from our normal unit's (one of them claiming that the soldiers got too bored of having the same whiney kids, which lots of the soldiers sniggered at) into groups where we had one person from each unit in it.

I was glad to see some familiar faces in my group, including Farah, Ava and Nate; and we were directed over to the fitness training tent and told to partner up.

It didn't take me long to figure out that my friends had deliberately left me to be paired up with Nate, but I didn't mind – he was good company.

He grinned at me as we lined up, "Hello again."

"Hey, have a good night's sleep?" Hitting myself with a tree in my head, I sighed inwardly – why did I have to be so socially retarded? Honestly, you see other girls and they're _fine _with guys. See, look, there's Ava chatting with Anthony and she's perfect! She doesn't say anything that would make him think she's mentally retarded or a reject, but what do I do? I go right ahead an-

"Not really, I had to end up shoving the pillow over my head because everybody in my dorm snores," he rolled his eyes slightly, "What about you? I heard that you had kitchen duty. Did they try skinning you alive?"

I'm not mentally retarded! I'm actually making co- okay, focus Jenny, you don't want to get distracted!

I laughed slightly, "No, they just tried to cut my head off by flinging frying pans at me." It's true _and _funny! Hey, look at me, talking to somebody asides my friends!

He nodded, smirking, "Yeah, I heard from Leah that Eagle tried to decapitate you. I-"

"_Ahem_." Oopsie, Wolf didn't look quite pleased, "_If _you would be so kind to stop flirting, I would like to get started."

"Sorry sir," Nate nodded at him and then winked at me when Wolf started talking again.

I grinned sheepishly at him before looking back to the ground, fully knowing whose glare was digging into my skull at that moment. And I don't know why, but I felt so guilty it was almost as if I had cheated on Cub – even though we haven't even made pleasant conversation before and were most certainly _not _in a relationship. Well...

Shaking the stupid thoughts away, again, I tried to concentrate on what Wolf was saying.

xxx

_Hey, I know it's been a while since I've updated and whatnot but it's took me a few hours to get this done. I know, it doesn't look like a few hours work, but I have re-written it all =) I prefer this version to be honest, and I hope you do too!_

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[15****th**** March 2012]]****


	8. Chapter Eight

Be My Fool

_Chapter Eight_

_D: I don't own Alex._

xxx

Cub walked out of the class about half way through, I think about the time I had started to attempt to lift weights while laughing. But, honestly, that wasn't my fault... Or maybe it was, I don't know, I'm so confused about the entire thing that I've decided to try not to read into it too much.

Anyway, so an hour or so later after killing ourselves with weights too heavy for us to lift and skipping for half an hour straight, we finally get a fifteen minute break. Nate went off with Gordon, Anthony and Charlie while I returned to Farah, Ava and Ruby. Ruby was good friends with Ava, and she was quite nice so I didn't mind that she was with us all.

As soon as I sat down next to them and said "Hey", they all grinned at me.

Taking a sip from my water bottle, I lowered the bottle slowly before asking, "Why're you guys staring at me?"

"Well?" Ava squealed, "Details? Hello!"

I blinked a few times before realising what she was talking about, but when I did I started blushing a horrible beetroot colour. I looked down and fiddled with my bottle lid, "Well... there isn't much to say to be h-"

"Oh shut up!" Ruby grinned at me, leaning forward, "Everybody's seen you two flirting. Are you guys together yet? Have you sha-"

I squirted her with my water bottle to get her to stop talking, causing Farah and Ruby to burst out laughing.

"Shut up! And no we have _not_, thank you very much," I replied, now probably the colour of a constipated pig, and took the bobble out of my hair to hide as much of my face as possible. I fixed my eyes to the floor, avoiding looking up to see whose eyes were drilling into the back of my neck – which I had the feeling it would probably be Nate.

Soon enough though, after they teased me a bit more, it was time to move onto the medical tent.

xxx

I was a bit nervous for my check-up, wondering how much information they would have on me but Farah and the others helped to keep me calm and distracted.

Ten minutes after Nate had entered the other side of the tent, he came back out. He looked fine, except for the sweat dripping down his face, and he had to pause for a minute before we could understand whatever he was trying to say.

"H-he s-said," insert another gasp of air here, "To send y-you in." He nodded at me before collapsing into a seat, breathing heavily.

Great. I nodded back at him, said my thanks, and started walking towards where he came from.

Snake was in charge of this tent. He nodded to the seat next to him, indicating I should sit, and didn't even look at me until he had finished typing something up on his laptop.

"Right, all we're doing today is testing your body. Hence, why Eagle is here to help." He glared at the man I hadn't noticed playing with some of the equipment before turning back to me, "He'll set you up if you go over, and I'll be over in a minute."

I nodded before making my way, cautiously, over to Eagle, "So what exactly have I gotta do?"

"Take these things," he passed me some pads, with wires sticking out of them, "And put two on your chest, and the other on your arm. Then sit on the rowing machine."

I did as he said before waiting, watching him trying to start up the machine. After about a minute, Snake returned just in time for Eagle to get the thing set up – you could tell by the triumphant grin on his face that he had just avoided getting scolded by Snake for turning the damned thing off.

"Right, so all I want you to do is to get a rhythm going and when the bell goes off," Snake tapped at the machine, indicating it would make the noise, "Then you try and go as fast as you can for a minute. Can you do that?"

By the disdain on his face, he wasn't used to having to be so kind to people – but I guess it's all the pros of being a kid.

I nodded, again, and replied "Yes, sir" when he glared at me. This was going to be interesting...

xxx

Fifteen minutes later, I exited the room – exhausted. They had told me to wait until my pulse was back to normal before writing down the time on my hand, so they could record it without taking up even more time. They also asked me to send in Ava, so when I returned I kicked her shin as I went past before collapsing into a chair.

Nate came to join me, grinning, "You look like you had fun!"

Glaring at him, I pushed him slightly but he barely moved considering I had no energy left – which just caused him to start laughing at me.

"Bugger off," I muttered, glaring at him as I tried to recover.

He just laughed harder at this, but eventually he got a hold of himself and just sat and grinned at me.

I raised an eyebrow at him, feeling my heart beat return to normal, "What? Never seen a girl sweat like a horse before?"

He smirked slightly and opened his mouth to say some sort of witty retort, but unfortunately Farah decided to but in.

"Oi!" She yelled from where she was sitting with Ruby, "Absolutely no flirting before dinner, it's forbidden!"

I gave her 'the look' while Nate laughed, turning to face her, "Forbidden by who?"

"By me! I'm her wifey and what I says, goes! So you can take your-"

Dreading whatever she was going to say next, I intervened by yelling, "That's nice Farah, you go do that! Yeah, we heard you, off you go!"

She glared at me as she kept trying to talk but I yelled over her until eventually she gave up, and sat in a huff.

Nate chuckled quietly and I looked back at him, having half-forgotten he was there. He grinned before asking, "So does this mean that I _can _flirt before dinner, or is that still in the rulebook?"

And, for once, I was glad Eagle yelled at me to hand over my time because I had absolutely _no idea _how I was going to reply to that.

xxx

The rest of the day passed in a blur and the 'tent of doom' (as some kids had named the tent without a sign-post) was actually just a "common-sense" test and before I knew it, it was 10 PM and we were all hanging out in our dorm (Farah included, since she didn't want to go back to her dorm again... but I couldn't blame her, she _was _sharing with Kayla, Claire and Kate).

Chloe stood up and made a 'shh'ing noise to get us all to stop laughing, "R-Right, your abnormal taste in men _aside_ Leah – Jen! What's going on with your love life at the moment?"

She grabbed the nearest can of coke (zero of course, she wouldn't drink anything less) and leant against the wall, smirking.

I sighed, lying back on Leah's bed since I couldn't be bothered to climb the ladders up to my bed when we returned from dinner, and started to look at the patterns of the underside of my bed. "There's not much to tell reall-"

"Oh don't give us that bull crap! We _all _know tha-" Tulip interrupted but I cut her off.

I made a frustrated noise before sitting up straight, "Let me finish, will you?" She nodded, content, and I sighed again before continuing, "Right, well, _as I was saying... _There isn't much to tell. There's something between me and Nate, which might turn into something – I really don't know – and then... well... yeah..." I coughed, stopping mid-sentence and taking a drink to give me an excuse not to talk.

"And then there's Cub!" Farah finished brightly, grinning at me, "Which is, y'know, completely out-of-bounds and he's probably a good two times our age-"

"Nah, I'd say he's around 24, that isn't that bad. He's younger than all of the other soldiers." Leah butted in and Chloe nodded her head in agreement.

"Well, yes," Tulip started, "_But _that doesn't mean to say that this is going to turn out well. I mean, let's just say by chance you two get a moment alone together – what exactly do you guys think is gunna happen? That he's just gunna suddenly start snogging her like there's no tomorrow?"

"Yeah!" Chloe, Leah and Farah said in unison but Tulip glared at them.

"_No!_ His entire job would be on the line and, I'm sorry Jen, but that really isn't realistic. We're leaving in two weeks and there really isn't a hope in _hell _that it would work out!"

I nodded, considering both sides, and knew that Tulip was right but I was surprised at how much I was disappointed by that.

"Take it back!" Leah suddenly play-dived on Tulip, and the two rolled into the wall... or, rather, they did until the bottom of the wall gave way into a tunnel.

xxx

_I've had so many version of this story put up, that I'd almost forgotten about this. Well, it's not the exact same entrance or whatever... but some of you might recognise the place they end up in :) This chapter has been re-done quite a lot, so if you haven't read it fully you might want to go back up and read it again ^-^ Otherwise you might be confused a little in the next chapter._

_Oh and apologies about the shortness of the chapter!_

_Love_You

_InsignificantBlimp_

**[[16th March 2012]]**


	9. Chapter Nine

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Nine**_

_D: I don't own Alex._

xxxx

_Hello! :) Yes, I'm back and I've managed to write and upload the rest of the updates to the chapters. If you haven't went back and read them, __**you will need to read it before you continue**__ otherwise you might be a little lost... or, at least, just chapter 8. Thank you guys for sticking with me, and I hope you don't hate me!_

_Now, continue with the story! :D_

xxxx

"Oh my God, Jen, do something!" Chloe screamed, kneeling down next to the tunnel.

I ran over too, looking down the dark slide, "What the hell am I supposed to do? Grow a set of ladders out of my _backside_?"

"Guys, shut up and stop arguing! How are we gunna get them out?" Farah knelt down next to us, eyes wild with panic, before calling down, "_Leah?! Tulip?! Are you okay?_"

There was a moment of silence before we heard coughing, and by the sounds of it – it wasn't very far down.

"Y-yeah," more coughing, "We're okay guys!" That was Tulip.

Leah groaned, "Speak for yourself woman! I think I've fractured my bloody back!"

"Oh stop being a cry-baby and use your phone as a light so we can see!"

We all laughed nervously, and I called down, "Is there a way back up guys? Or should we go get someone?"

"No-no, just let us take a quick sweep of the area and then we'll get back to you!" Leah yelled up, "If we can't find an exit then just throw a sheet or two down so we can climb back up!"

"What?" Chloe asked us, confused – and I couldn't blame her, it was hard to think when we were half-relieved and half-still-panicking.

"She means to tie knots into the sheets and tie the sheets together, so they can climb up it," I explained, pulling Chloe back and making her sit on the bed while Farah stared anxiously at the tunnel.

There was a moment of silence before I spoke up, not liking it, "What's it like down there guys?"

"Oh, it's just _lovely _down here," Leah's sarcastic voice carried up the tunnel easily, and we all laughed, "Yup, I think I'm coming down here for the summer!"

"Oh shut up, you know what I meant," I replied, grinning as the others laughed again.

"Well, it's kind of hard to describe..." Tulip called up, "It's mainly made of dirt, but there are a few plugs in one corner and a carpet in the middle... It's a circular room, we think, but we can't find an exit yet."

There was a slight pause before Farah spoke up, "Does anyone else get the feeling that the exit's hidden too? Y'know, like the entrance is?"

"No, because I've found it!" We heard Leah's voice yell, "It leads out in the other direction though!"

I shared a look with Farah, since Chloe was currently out of it and before we knew what we were doing we were going down to join them – and Chloe stayed behind as guard, if they came around or whatever (which would probably never happen) or to go get help if we hadn't made it back in over two hours.

I slid down first and tumbled over as soon as I hit the bottom, where dust rose from the dried out, mud floor. Standing up, I called for Farah to come down, and moved away from the exit of the slide. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but at least they had found a lamp and had lit it so we had a little bit of light.

I looked around in awe at the... cave? As Tulip said, it was circular room carved into the earth however with a "modern corner" that looked a few years old – it had a computer, and a few spare plugs on the side with wires coming through the walls. Tulip was currently booting up the computer, and Leah was buried in papers. There was a giant trunk next to a bed, made from wood and a thin mattress, and then lots of papers scattered around on the floor. There was a fine layer of dust from the mud on everything, so it was obvious that whoever used to come here hadn't been for at least a few months. There was also a tap of some sort near the bed, with a few pots and pans plus a mini stove. A box lay next to it, most likely with dried food in it, and that was it. It was fairly big, but it was crammed in with a lot of stuff which made it seem a little smaller.

However, one thing I did notice is that no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find the exit anywhere.

"Uh, Leah?" I asked, pacing around the room slowly, "Where's that exit you were talking about?"

"Oh, yeah!" She leaped up from the chest and pointed under the bed, "It's there, so we need to shimmy under to get through."

I nodded and looked over at Tulip, "Tulip, we can come back later but for now we need to figure out how to get back."

She blushed but grinned and walked over, "Okay, fine, but as long as we get to come back – this place is amazing!"

I rolled my eyes slightly, but I can't admit that I was intrigued as well. Farah had already opened the hatch and we shimmied in after her. Going last meant that I had to use my foot to close up the hatch behind us, which was no easy task but it did seem designed to be able to do that.

The tunnel we were in was made of some sort of metal, and was starting to go steadily upwards – which is why there were rungs on the top so we could climb up. It was bigger than the last tunnel, but it still didn't help when we were breathing harder as we were so tired. However, Farah did eventually get to the top and then we were out in the night. She had to heave the metal cover a bit, since it was so unused, however we did get out... Into the middle of nowhere.

Shutting the metal hatch, it looked just like the rest of the ground – mud and leaves. Which meant that we had to find our way back the other way, because we wouldn't be able to find it again.

"Well, there _is _a path, and it's our best hope to getting back," Tulip stated, pointing to the road-path.

I nodded, "Okay but let's just walk near it, we don't actually want to be _on _it."

"Yeah, that'd be a little hard to explain to the Sergeants. 'Well, you see sir, we found a secret hide-out in our dorm and we followed it out this way and that's why we're out at midnight!' I'm sure they'd understand fully," Leah said, sarcastic as always, but we laughed quietly anyway.

As we headed off, the only thing I could hear were the leaves crunching as we stepped on them and the occasional whistle of the wind, brushing against the trees. It wasn't that cold because of the clouds, which I was grateful for because I didn't want to be walking around in my pyjamas in the freezing cold – however it didn't stop our breath making clouds as we breathed.

Walking quickly, and without talking, we reached the end of our dorms soon enough and we crept back to our dorm before barging in and starting to giggle like maniacs. I guess it was the nerves of getting caught, but we always seem to do it when we're nervous. Chloe was asleep, but when we barged in she ended up falling onto the floor which made us laugh even more – which didn't help since we were trying to be quiet.

After that, we silently took off our socks (that were probably now ruined forever) and checked for leaves before crawling into bed.

We were going to be _so _tired in the morning.

xxx

I was right. We were so tired, in fact, that we were fifty eight minutes late. And given that this is the SAS, we would have been dead sixty times over if their looks could kill.

It all started out like this...

"_Wake up lovelies, we've got a big, big day ahead of us!" Eagle yelled as he walked past, and I lay blinking in my bed._

_I was just so tired, that after 5 minutes of trying to get up I gave up and went back to sleep thinking, "just for a minute, then I'll get up"._

_So, fifty minutes later I woke up to Leah screaming at us all to get up because we were '__**so dead**__'. I didn't understand at first but when the message got through, we'd never moved faster in our entire lives._

And so, it ended like this (where we are now):

We stood in line, waiting silently for Wolf to explode. His vein was pulsing, bigger than ever, and he was sitting 'calmly' on a chair in the mess hall while playing with a knife. And even though this was terrifying, I had the urge to start giggling again – like last night. It was _not _a good habit to get into.

Then suddenly, he flung the knife into the wall – in between mine and Leah's head. Tulip, Chloe and Farah squealed a bit and I had to admit I jumped about 5 foot into the air, and my heart beat was now going a million miles per hour.

"You brats are so lucky that I can't give out extreme punishments," he growled, his eyes flashing with anger, "But since I _can't_ do that because you're just _children_," he sneered out the word before standing up, "You lot can clean an entire storage cupboard out..." and, looking at our shocked faces, he decided to add "Each!" at the end of it.

Tulip cleverly stepped on Leah's foot before she could say anything and he dismissed us to go up to the shooting range where the others were.

As we escaped, Farah sighed loudly, "Well, it could have been a lot worse."

I nodded along with Tulip and even though Leah and Chloe didn't like it, they knew that we'd gotten off extremely light.

xxx

People were too busy trying to assemble and reassemble guns when we entered and it only just occurred to me as I was walking in what was bugging me so much: why were they letting 15 year old and 16 year old kids learn how to use a gun? Before I could talk to the others about it though, Eagle had bounced over and started pointing us over to our different groups.

We had been split up into different 'classes' of skill. They hadn't told us what 'class' we were in, but you could sort of guess how well they thought you were by the standard of the people you were with. We were split up into three groups; Farah and Chloe into one, Tulip and Leah into another and that left me by myself. I wandered over to my group and relaxed a little to see a friendly faces. Sophie, Ella, Sam and Nate were there who I got along well enough with and there was also Erik, Will and Oliver who I didn't know too well.

I grinned as I watched Nate try to figure out how to assemble his gun again, "You're not very good at this, are you?"

He looked up and grinned back, "You finally decided to show up then? Here, this is yours."

Ha handed me some sort of Ruger and I tried to remember what my dad had taught me, "Yeah, we slept in 50 minutes late on purpose because we wanted to spend more quality time with Wolf."

Laughing, he barely noticed the fact that I had nearly disassembled the gun already. I decided to slow down a bit; I didn't need any more attention after this morning... especially the wrong sort. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled again and I shrugged my shoulders back to try and get rid of it. It was the same feeling of being watched like the day before. And yet, when I look around, nobody is looking at me. It was starting to fray my nerves, and having frayed nerves with a gun was _not _a good combination. Maybe I should tell Chloe... she might understand more than the others.

A hand waved in front of my face and I started slightly before noticing it was just Nate, "..-en? Hey, you in there?"

"Oh, what, uhm, yeah?" I blurted, blushing as per usual.

He gave me an odd look before turning back to assembling his gun, "I was asking how you knew how to assemble a gun, since you'd completely missed the beginning of the lesson. Then you sort of blanked out for a little bit there."

I smiled, trying to ease the discomfort, "Yeah, sorry, I was a few thousand miles away there. And I learned from my dad, he was in the army."

"Oh yeah, I forgot," his smile wavered and I made a motion with my hand as if to say 'don't worry about it'.

I coughed slightly to break the silence, while finishing assembling the gun, "You need any help?"

He shook his head and grinned, holding it up just as he finished, "I may have taken longer, but I haven't done this before. I'm pretty proud of myself!"

"Yeah, well, pride won't get you anywhere boy," Bison had been listening in from behind us and glared at him, "Can you shoot at a target yet? Damn well not. Could you use it to protect you yet? _Bloody _damn well not. So quit your yappin' and concentrate!"

He stalked away and Alex rolled his eyes before turning back to look at me, "They've just been making us dissemble and reassemble these things all morning; you honestly haven't missed much here. We don't even know what type of bloody gun this is!"

Looking around, he lowered his voice before continuing, "It's bloody pointless this, how is _this _supposed to help us?"

I knew from the moment the words left his mouth somebody had been listening, and from the way a hand clamped down on his shoulder, I knew he was in trouble.

xxx

_So what d'you think? :) Please leave me a review, it would make my day!_

_**Love**_**You**

_InsignificantBlimp_

****[[16****th**** March 2012]]****


	10. Chapter Ten

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Ten**_

_D: I don't own Alex Rider._

xxxx

_Heylola (: Guess what? Okay, never mind, you probably hate me but... I've left school! :D That means I have 8/9 weeks of freedom to finish this story before I start college :P I __**will **__get this done, it is now my life mission to do so :D So without further ado, continue to read! :D_

xxxx

I stumbled into the closet and Wolf flicked on the light switch behind me, muttering a snarky comment, before leaving me to get on with my punishment. The others had been taken to different areas, so we couldn't talk, and so I was left alone to mull the day over through my head.

Taking in the haphazardly-arranged equipment piled all over the shelves, I decided it would be best to start by getting it all off the shelves to see what I had to try and re-cram on it in an 'orderly fashion'.

Sighing, I started to pull all of the crap off from the shelves to the floor.

It wasn't long after Nate had decided to mutter a comment that we had all been yelled at and kicked out of the barracks. We were all split up quickly into different groups, and I never saw or heard anything from any of my friends until lunch. I thought it was hell then; it got even worse _after _lunch.

Y'see, since my subconscious secretly loves to make me act like an idiot and my brain seems to think it's funny to make me have an incy-wincy _tiny ickle-little _crush on he-who-shall-not-be-named... let's just say that they _don't _make me act in the smartest of ways.

I squealed and flung a shoe at a spider hanging down from a web, making sure it ran _out _of the closet before returning back to work. I could practically _hear _everyone laughing at me.

Sighing, I re-tied my hair, and kept pulling the things from the shelf to the floor.

"One potato," I flung a shoe out off the shelf, "Two potato," I flung another, "Three potato, _four_!" I flung two off the shelf, "Five potato, six potato," more flying shoes here, "Seven potato, _mor_- AH!"

The shelf above fell down, and I covered my head as it started to rain equipment. As soon as the mini-attack was over, I sighed and groaned again as I looked at the destroyed shelf. I had two options: to go tell Wolf what happened and hope he understood (as if that would happen) or try and fix it with some sort of material.

I weighed my options and I was just about to go searching for a book through the mess when somebody spoke up from the doorway, "Well that was quite a show."

So what exactly would you do huh? Come off suave and flick your hair and act like you didn't do anything? Well... I think I just about had a heart attack, jumped and hit my head off the wall – knocking myself onto the floor.

I groaned, recognising the voice, but in too much pain to care.

I heard some muttering before delicate footsteps made their way towards me, "You okay?"

"Perfect, _sir_." I hissed, my eyes squinting because of the brightness of the bulb and the sharp pain running through my head.

"Really? You hit your head pretty hard."

And, if I wasn't mistaken, I swore that bloody git was laughing at me. Amusement rang through his voice.

I grumbled something back, tenderly sitting up and rubbing my head gingerly. I blinked a few times before everything came into focus, including C- _he-who-shall-not-be-named's _face. It was truly ridiculous the effect just a person's _face _could make me stop breathing normally, but I could pass it off as a concussion or something like that... from hitting my head, y'know?

Tilting his head to one side, he raised an eyebrow, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"Yes, _sir_, I'm _fine_," I said, gritting my teeth – unexplainably angry and annoyed. Well, at least from his point of view. From his point of view I'm probably just a bratty little kid, acting like a princess being made to scrub out toilets. God, I could never act normal, could I?

His mouth tilted upwards at the side, and my heart stuttered. His eyes sparked with something akin to curiosity, as if he could _hear _my heart beating erratically. He was enjoying himself, that much I could tell. A sudden surge of anger, and possibly hurt, flared in me and I stood up quickly – away from him. I was _not _a toy.

"But if I want to get finished before morning, I should probably get a move on." I turned away from him, starting to shuffle the crap on the floor towards the corner.

I barely noticed him leaving, except from he paused in the doorway for a second before walking swiftly down the corridor.

I didn't bother to try and sort out what just happened, and my head felt like it had been left in the tumble-dryer for too long, so I focused all my energy onto emptying and re-stacking the storage cupboard. I'd had too much of a Cub today, he was starting to mess up my head.

I just wanted to go to bed and forget about the world, forget about everything that was happening. I finished a lot quicker than I thought I would have, and ended up walking back at about 12. I was the first one back, so I quickly changed into my pyjamas and fell fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

xxxx

_We were standing around the lake, waiting for the others to arrive. We had been told to meet here for the next part of training, and most people had already shown up. All seemed fine – the sky was blue, the sunset glowing in the distance, the lake still... it was a nice day in Brecon Beacons, for once. The others were talking, but I stood and watched the setting, occasionally nodding and smiling._

_And suddenly, it changed. The skies were full of planes, and smoke was rising from the camp – we all began screaming and running. I ran and ran, towards where I knew the mess hall was. Why were the others not following? Where were they going? Soon, I was alone, and walking towards the mess hall. I couldn't run, I couldn't no matter how hard I wanted to – it only slowed me down._

_Somebody yelled - they'd found me. They were catching up to me fast, but still my body refused to run. I was on the floor, and the next thing I knew my head was being held up by my hair and I was on my knees. A man, dressed all in black, lifted up his gun and pointed it at my face – laughing. They were all laughing at me._

_I squirmed and struggled, but it was useless. I was pinned down and I saw the barrel of the gun again the bridge of my nose. I saw his hand pulling against the trigger and I knew this was it-_

WHAM!

Disorientated, I blinked a few times before I realised I had been pushed onto the floor. I could also recognise voices whispering to each other, and some aimed at me.

I snapped out of my stupor when Tulip shook my arm, "Jen, hey, you awake now?"

"Wha- oh, yeah, yeah," I sat up, "Sorry, I must have been out of it."

"Yeah, you were out like a light – it's took us half an hour to wake you," Chloe smiled at me, "We were thinking of leaving you but..."

Leah stepped in, "We thought you'd be upset if you missed out – we're planning on going down again."

I was suddenly wide awake, and alert, "What are you waiting for then? Let's go!"

Leah smiled smugly at Farah, who rolled her eyes and slid down before all of us. It didn't take long to get down, and we'd left a rope to climb back up. We'd padded some pillows in our beds in case they decided to check on us (fat chance, but Tulip said it was better to be safe than sorry), so we were covered.

It was just as we'd left it, except this time we didn't bother to carefully look around – we went straight to what we wanted to look at. Most of them went to the computer, but I went over to where the chest was. Chloe soon followed.

"So where d'you want me to look Cap'n?" She grinned at me, sitting on the filthy mattress.

I looked at the trunk and said, "We could try pulling everything from the trunk and looking at it all?"

She shrugged and we got started, slowly lifting out different artefacts that looked as if it could have been here for 20 years – maybe longer.

"Awh, look at this!" Chloe showed me a picture of a stunning woman in a white wedding dress, "Isn't she beautiful?"

"I wonder who she was," I muttered, looking at the picture for another second – she looked vaguely familiar, I shook my head slightly before returning to pulling out other things, "So how exactly did Leah convince all of you that it was a good idea to come back down here?"

"Actually... It was Tulip. She wanted another look, and Leah agreed. I figured why not – it was only Farah who didn't really want to but she came along anyway since she was outvoted." Laughing, she continued, "Democracy at its best."

I snorted, pulling out a small stack of leather-bound books and letting them fall to the floor. Coughing from the rising dust, I peered into the box, "Has anybody brought a torch or something?"

There were a few murmurs of 'no' and I sighed, before continuing to pull things out.

"So... What'd you been doing before you came back?" Chloe asked innocently, genuinely interested, "I was shoved into kitchen duty." She shuddered, recalling some memory, "I honestly don't know how you survived, I don't think I'll ever get the smell of cleaning products out of my hands anytime soon."

I grinned and cleared my throat, keeping my eyes fixed on the box, "I had to clean out one of the storage cupboards."

I could tell she was giving me a look, but I didn't bother to look up to face her, "And... what? Did something happen?"

The question wasn't needed, it had to be obvious. Hell, I knew how to lie – but my throat just seemed to close up. I didn't know what to say.

"U-uhm, well..." I pulled out some newspaper articles, "I started by pulling out the boots, as you do, and got attacked by a spider. I also broke a shelf and uhm... yeah."

"'And uhm, yeah'?" Chloe quoted, mocking me, "So what exactly does that equate to? You find some sort of super-secret gov op plans? Or a uranium bomb that could explode at any moment, killing us all?"

It worked, and I laughed, "No, no, it's nothing like that... Cub just showed up."

There was a small pause, "Huh, what happened?"

I stopped pulling things out, looking at her – but she was focusing on a paper she'd pulled out, "Nothing that _you're _thinking of, that's for sure."

"I wasn't thinking of anything." She replied innocently, looking up, "It must just be your imagination."

Glaring, I flung an old tennis ball at her and she burst out laughing.

"Fuck off." I spat out, turning away, my face flaming.

Snorting, she sat up, "Okay, okay, Mrs. Sensitive. What _really _happened?"

So, I explained, muttering quietly and quickly under my breath – but I was positive that she heard every word. "...I don't know, I just – don't know."

"Look, Jen, you might not like what I'm going to say – but this is my perspective on it." I nodded, accepting that I couldn't yell or be angry at her, considering she only wants the best for me, "Well, to be honest, maybe you overreacted a bit." Then again, she should know not to push her luck... "Okay, it's a bit harsh but... I don't think he'd do that. I mean..."

She let out a loud sigh, before looking up at me, "If he really _was _interested, despite the fact he would, not probably, but definitely, lose his job for it – he wouldn't think you as a 'play thing'. My guess is that he's just as messed up as you are... actually, truthfully, he's older than us and doesn't has the hormones of teenage girl – no offence!"

I glared at her, my hands twitching to throw something at her, "Just finish what you're going to say."

She grinned sheepishly, "Well, he's obviously got a lot on his plate as well – y'know? Sure, he was probably just seeing how you'd react, but I doubt he was getting some sort of sick amusement out of it. I mean, come on, he'd have to be really pathetic to do that and he would be spending his time doing something more productive than messing with some girl. Which makes me think that..."

"Maybe you're not just '_some girl_'," Leah finished, having been listening in. I sighed, not bothering to scold her for eavesdropping.

I looked at my hands, blushing, before sighing and groaning, "I'm such a dolt."

Collapsing onto the floor on my back, I just wanted to sink in and disappear from the world.

"Of course you are!" Leah sang happily, laughing when I tried to kick her, "But that doesn't matter, he probably already knows that."

I groaned again, covering my face with my hands, knowing that was more than a hundred percent true.

I could hear them sniggering slightly, and smiled slightly myself. You could either laugh or cry in situations like this, and I wasn't planning on crying anytime soon.

xxxx

Tulip had set up a programme on the computer before we'd left, to recover all files, documents... all of that. And we climbed back up at about half one, absolutely exhausted and knowing we were going to be dead the next day.

Surprisingly, I had woken up before Eagle had even snuck in – around quarter to five. The sun was already streaking through the window, and I sat still while looking around the cabin.

It was day... what? Four? Five? Five. Yes, day five. It was weird to think that we'd already been here for four days... or, well, three and a bit considering we arrived towards the end of the day. We were supposedly staying here for two weeks, but they said that could change to be shorter or longer if needed. I wondered how far our investigation would go, or if it would be cut short. I'm not really sure what we were doing down there, but there was a pull of curiosity that seemed to draw all of us down there.

The face on the photograph still stuck in my mind, but since it had been so dark I couldn't say that I actually knew them. Next time, we _had _to make sure that we brought a torch with us.

Glancing at the clock, I noticed it was five and I barely had time to wonder where Eagle was before the door burst open. My eyes widened as I took in his attire – it took me a moment to register that he was dressed in a Santa costume, and another to see the sack on his back.

"_MAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIL DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY LADIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!"_

He pulled out a letter for each of us, and a bungle of packages, before screaming "Ho Ho Ho!" and running out again.

Shaking my head, I jumped down and took the letter what had my name scrawled across it (I guessed the Sergeant's or something, considering it was on all of ours) and the small package with the same tag and took it up to my bunk.

The others were stirring, each greedily taking their own packages when they discovered the mail and I grinned, tearing open the letter. My smile faltered when I saw it was from my older brother, and not my Nan, but I still happily opened it up.

_Hey Jen,_

_I heard from Mum that you've been sent to camp! I heard from my friends the real story though... This will probably be checked before it gets to you then, but they can't do anything about it – technically, I _am _still SAS even though I never did anything for them._

_Speaking of... I decided not to go ahead with the plan. I'm quitting the Army for now, while Mum needs our support. I've took on a job at Suzan's, you know Suzan right? Well, anyway, I can pay the bills for the house and food and stuff – so you don't have to worry about Mum while you're there._

_I moved back home a day or so ago... I'm looking after Mum now, and she's getting better. She's been getting up each day, making her morning cups of tea... She'll be back on track before you know it!_

_Oh, and the package – make sure to keep it hidden from the SAS. They'd do anything to get their hands on actual edible food! I'd make sure to keep it all safe. Oh, and while you're there you should look out for my friend Adam. I think his codename is Lion or something, you met him once remember? Say 'Hi' from me to him, will you? And tell him I'm sorry. He probably arrived a day or so ago, when I was meant to arrive._

_Thanks bud, James_

I nodded a few times when reading it. James was previously in the Army, and was going to be promoted to SAS – but it looks like he's turned it down to stay at home with mum. Mum had lost a little of her marbles when Dad died, but it sounds like she's starting to heal – slightly. She was meant to be seeing a psychiatrist, which I guess must have helped. The last part stumped me though – sure I'd heard of Adam, having been tormented by him for multiple years during my childhood, but I hadn't seen him around. I'd have to keep my eye out, even though I had no idea how I'd even get close enough to talk to him just finding him would be a start.

Shaking my head slightly, I turned to the package and grinned while ripping it open. _Cookies!_

"Oh my God, I smell edible food!" Leah jumped up, looking at my little parcel, "_You bitch_!"

I laughed, grabbing one and shoving it in my mouth before taking the box and sealing it again before putting it in my toiletry bag. I doubted that the SAS would go anywhere near there, and I smiled before grabbing my clothes and getting into the bathroom after Farah left.

It was looking like it could be a good day.

xxxx

_You know the spiel – please leave a review/feedback! (: _

_Anything would be lovely, and I'm willing to take into account constructive criticism! I've also added a cover for the story, tell me if you like/dislike it and if it should be changed – note I don't have any editing software or anything like that so I can't do much!_

_Thanks for reading!_

_**InsignificantBlimp**_

3rd July 12


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Eleven**_

_D: I don't own Alex Rider._

xxxx

_Well I'm going to be busy from Friday 6__th__ to late on Monday 9__th__ so I will not be updating this story then (I have prom and Duke of Edinburgh things to do). I'll also warn in advance about my 2-week holiday coming up in 3 weeks, so I also (probably) won't be able to post then. Other than that I should be okay :) Without further ado... read on!_

xxxx

I probably shouldn't have said it was going to be a good day, because I swear somebody up there has it out for me. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched again. It had disappeared for a few days, but it seems to have come back with a vengeance. It made me twitchy, which was started to grate on the others' nerves.

"Honestly," Tulip hissed at me as I looked around once again, "What is _up _with you?"

Farah kicked her under the table, "What's up with _her_? What's up with _you_? What have you got your knickers in a twist for?"

"Me-_ow_," Leah said, rather loudly after the small silence, "Why have the kitties got their claws out?"

It had the effect she wanted; we all laughed and looked at each other apologetically. Nobody really knew where that came from, but I had a feeling that they were on edge as well – they just didn't recognise the feeling.

All the things that had happened so far... It was impossible for them all to be connected, but it would be too much if they weren't. It made my head throb trying to think it over, so I left the idea alone. I couldn't prevent whatever was coming.

"Guess what my brother told me," I started, noticing that nobody else knew what to talk about.

Leah's interest was immediately spiked, considering she'd had a long-time crush on my brother for as long as I could remember, and the others seemed a little interested too.

"Do you guys remember Adam?"

Chloe started laughing, as in proper full-out, belly-moving laughter, "Oh my God, what's happened now?"

The others looked a little confused, but I guess that was because they'd never met him before. Chloe was really the only one who had been to my house a lot.

"He's my brother's friend," I elaborated, rolling my eyes at the still-chortling Chloe – even if my lips did twitch a bit in amusement, "Well, apparently, he's here - under the codename Lion."

"And, let me guess, your brother asked you to find him or something?" Tulip said as she sipped on her drink.

I grinned, realising she was hiding a smile and not angry at me, "Something like that. So I was sort of hoping, since it's Sunday, that we might get a little time to look out for him..." I trailed off, looking over my shoulder at the group of talking men who were deciding what to do with us.

"You might be right," Farah nodded, "About the whole getting more time thing. They might want a break from looking after us."

I laughed, shaking my head slightly, knowing it was true.

"So what does this 'Adam' look like?" Leah inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Chloe sighed heavily, batting her eyelids, "Oh you know the type, tall, dark, handso- _UMPH!_"

I smacked her over the head, glaring, and the others laughed, "Please shut up, otherwise I fear I may be scarred for life. That's practically my brother."

"You haven't seen him in ages though, so he might be fit!"

I just glared at her, which seemed to amuse her more, before rolling my eyes and fighting the urge to smile. Just like old times.

"Tell you what, if you spot him – make sure to point him out – then we'll form a plan of attack to abduct him do you can talk to him. Does that sound fair enough?" Leah smirked, leaning back in her seat.

"Deal," I nodded, and Farah was just about to say something when Wolf yelled over the noise for us all to shut up.

Grinning, I tried to ignore the faces Chloe and Leah started making at each other – no doubt their impressions of Wolf – and turned to face the man in question.

xxxx

As it turned out, they had given us Sunday as 'study day' – which basically meant that they'd told us to fuck off and do whatever for a day.

Some people had headed off to the lake, others to quiet spots in the woods, and others back to their dorms. We decided to head back over to the dorm, and were going down to explore the cave again. Of course, we had just nicknamed it 'the cave' so it was hard to get the message across to Chloe what the code 'sleep' meant. Eventually she caught on though, and we dragged her out of the mess hall before she could loudly exclaim what we were going to do.

xxxx

_POV SWITCH: 3__rd__ person_

The room, although rather large, was crammed to the brim with soldiers waiting for the arrival of Deputy Head of MI6 – also the woman who was running this op. Tulip Jones was rarely late, or early, for any of her meetings; but right now she was running about half an hour behind.

In the room already there was the Sergeant, and all the units involved with the kids. It had been five days, and they wanted to get rid of them. They wanted to know exactly what was going on, and that is why the meeting had been called.

The door to the side flung open and a few MI6 operatives stepped in, including Crawley, and then Tulip Jones.

A small hush had hovered over the room, and there was a sudden scraping of chairs as the soldiers took their seats. The Sergeant remained standing though, glaring fiercely at Jones.

"What's the deal Jones, we aren't keeping the brats here for much longer without an explanation." He ground out, gritting his teeth.

Jones didn't even flinch, "It's a little more complicated than that Sergeant. If you would kindly take a seat."

It wasn't an offer, it was an order. He sat slowly, glaring.

"We have started discussions with the threat, but they are adamant to get what they want. We are, however, unaware of where or what this is. We also believe that the target is unaware of this as wel-"

"And just _who_ is the _damned target_?"

"Here," Jones handed him the file, and he flicked it open a school photo and a small fact file underneath, "Jennifer Gray, she's the daughter of deceased SAS soldier William Gray. I believe you know who that is?"

The Sergeant glared, if he could, even harder at her and spat out, "I don't think I'd forget attending a funeral no more than a few weeks ago."

Jones acted as if she hadn't heard him and continued, "So, as the target is unaware of her current predicament we want all eyes on her at _all times_. We don't want to frighten her, of course, so it should be done secretly. None-the-less, still 24 hour protection."

A few soldiers, or rather the majority, sent dark looks in her direction – it wasn't _their _fault that the brat was in danger, why did they have to be bloody babysitters? And they could hardly believe that MI6 didn't want to 'frighten her'.

With a resigned sigh, still furious though, the Sergeant asked, "So who is the threat?"

Avoiding his eyes, Jones shuffled her files, "All further questions can be answered in the file, however I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep this child safe."

It was a clear end of discussion, and with that Jones walked swiftly back out – flanked by her MI6 agents.

Wolf had already found his way to the front, and glared at any soldier who dared to get closer to the Sergeant before directing his gaze towards said man, "Sir, in order to protect Gray we _will _have to know-"

"Wolf, I am not an idiot. All Unit leaders will be informed, when _I _find it fit to do so, of the threat." The Sergeant stood up and walked purposely out, leaving the soldiers to find their way out when they were ready.

During the short conversation, the rest of K Unit had gathered around their leader and Eagle was first to break the silence.

"Well damn, I sure as hell didn't see that coming."

Glaring at Eagle, Wolf ignored his remark before saying gruffly, "C'mon, may as well go do something useful while we're waiting."

He stormed out, looking mightily like the Sergeant, and Snake sent Eagle a warning look before the four men walked out after him. Fox noticed a small change in Cub, but decided not to comment on it - they were already having a rough day.

xxxx

_POV Switch: Jen POV_

Laughter echoed around the cave as Leah, always the fierce one, chased Chloe around the room with a feather duster.

Snorting, I watched as they both fell over and stumbled around like a couple of drunks, before flicking on the torch and raking around for the picture. Even though it was still day time, it was still surprisingly dark in the cave. They probably shouldn't be surprised, considering there is practically no way for light to get into the cave, but they still ended up having to go back up for torches.

Finding the picture, I scrubbed off most of the dust before holding the torch close to the picture of the woman in her wedding dress. She was absolutely beautiful, no - stunning. Perched on the edge of a handsome wooden stool, the fluffy white material of the dress floated around her body elegantly, and she clasped a bouquet of flowers on her lap; her hair was pinned up, with a few loose curls framing her delighted face. The woman had very dark hair, but since it was a black and white picture the colour of her eyes couldn't be seen. There was nothing at all that gave me a clue as to who the woman was, considering she would probably a lot older or possibly even dead from how old the picture is, but I still couldn't shake the familiarity that the woman had.

Tracing my fingers across the golden frame with intricate patterns, I gazed at the picture. My frustration mounted and I sighed angrily before placing it roughly on the floor. It was getting me nowhere, and after already feeling paranoid this morning it wasn't helping my stress levels.

Groaning, maybe a bit too loudly, I hit my head with the palm of my hand and closed my eyes for a minute.

"You okay over there?" I raised my head to see Farah and Tulip looking at me from the computer.

I nodded and changed the subject, "What's the computer found?"

Tulip sighed, clicking something, "Honestly? Absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?" Leah demanded, looking up from her rather compromising position with Chloe. She seemed to realise this and just shrugged before moving to sit on her fully.

"Yes, I believe that's what I just said," Tulip said calmly, though I could see the hint of amusement in her eyes.

Farah sighed, "Whatever important down here must be on paper, because all we've found are emails that were sent to and from here and... some place in Cornwall. And reading through one of these, it seems all very innocent – just some friends talking. Nothing interesting at all."

"What if it's a code?" Chloe suggested, her voice slightly muffled from Leah sitting on her, and coughed a bit, "Ugh, God Leah you're killing me!"

Leah snorted slightly and I grinned.

"Well that is very probable, but since we – wait... did you guys hear that?" Farah's voice lowered slightly and we all turned to face the tunnel entrance, absolutely silent.

A faint sound of footsteps could be heard, and some yelling. It was time to get back up, and _fast_.

Rushing to the tunnel, I pushed Leah to go first since she was the fastest. The others quickly shuffled up and I went straight after Tulip, shoving her slightly to get her to move faster. We got up after a few seconds and we collapsed on the floor while Leah covered the hole with a box and just as we were ready the door burst open.

Fox appeared, and I made an effort to not look like I've just had a heart attack.

"How could you not hear all this commotion? Honestly..." He shook his head slightly before continuing, "There's a meeting in the Mess Hall now. You need to get there right away."

Leaving for the next cabin, we looked at each other in relief before grabbing our jackets and heading out into the drizzling rain.

That was a close one.

xxxx

By the time we got to the Mess Hall, we were jogging to get out of the rain thrashing down. Running through the door, we took the spots next to Nate and his friends. He grinned at me and I realised I hadn't seen him in a while now. I flashed a smile back, slipping into the seat on the other side of his.

I noticed him sporting a fierce-looking bruise on his forehead, "What the hell happened to you?"

"Well hello to you too," he chuckled, "Miss me?"

I lost the battle in trying not to grin back, and replied, "You haven't answered my question."

"Well you haven't answered mine, have you?"

"Well I asked first, didn't I?"

"I don't know, did you?"

Laughing, I shook my head as he batted his eyelids, "You're an idiot."

"OI! _Brats! _I suggest that you all _shut the fuck up _so you're not all on _kitchen duty _for the rest of your _miserable stay!_"

Silence rung out after looking up to see Wolf's angry, red face in the midst of everything.

"Oi, you! Sit down and shut up!" A soldier pointed to Leah and she made a 'what the fuck' face considering she was absolutely silent, and was sitting on the bench because there was no other room.

She met my eyes and I shrugged, feeling the eyes of the soldiers on us.

"Bloody hell," she muttered under her breath and I winced, recognising her mistake.

Wolf looked livid when he marched up to her and yelled in her face, "Bloody hell? _Bloody hell? _We are _well _within our rights to tell you lousy maggots to shut the hell up!"

Leah, being Leah, opened her arms up with her palms facing upwards and her eyes widened, "I didn't bloody _do _anything!"

Stop talking Leah. Please, _stop talking_.

I kept completely still as Wolf's jaw locked in place, and I could tell he was itching just to smack her one – but that _was _out of his range. So he had to settle on punishment.

"Just for that, you," he looked around at us, settling on me for a second, before turning back to Leah, "_and _your little gaggle of friends for that matter, can help the kitchen staff for the rest of the week."

Leah opened her mouth indignantly but before she could get a word out he yelled over her, following through with the threat he'd previously yelled, "Actually, scratch that, for the rest of you bloody stay!"

I elbowed her sharply before she could get us into any more trouble, and she settled for glaring at him. After a second, when I saw his mouth about to open again I elbowed her a bit more sharply and she uttered, "Fine, _sir_."

Finally backing off, Wolf went back to his original positions and started on why we were called here.

"Due to recent events," he started calmly, "Security of the camp, and therefore _you lot_, is being increased..."

And that was all I could hear before there was an uproar from the students, all babbling about what 'recent events' were and what 'increasing security' would means. They didn't get very far though, because Wolf decided to yell, "If you all don't shut up in 2 seconds then you're _all _joining your friends with kitchen duty!"

That, fortunately, shut them all up quickly and we sat completely still – frozen.

I knew that I'd moved slightly, but it was coming back – the feeling of being watched. I looked around, and again found nothing. I had to resign to listening to Wolf, and hoping to God that he'd just shut up and move on already. I _hated _feeling hopeless, and that's exactly how I felt right now – like a bug under a microscope.

Shuffling slightly, I listened in to what Wolf was saying, "..so, before I was interrupted – security is being tightened. That means that you brats can't go places by yourself without a soldier with you, and you are confined to the room that you are in until you are told to move. This means that there will be schedules _toilet trips_," he sneered the word, and I tried not to snigger, "during classes, morning and dinner breaks. If you are found without a soldier with you, you will be _severely _punished. Have I made myself _clear_?"

There was a round of nods before he continued, his voice not as deathly as before, "After lunch is over, you will be returned to your cabins and you will not be moved until dinner. Tomorrow classes will re-start."

He turned away and went to angrily speak with Fox, which was an obvious dismissal.

"I wonder what happened recently..." Tulip muttered, breaking the silence of the students and the conversation slowly started up.

"Who cares? Do you think he was serious about us five being on kitchen duty for the rest of the stay?" Chloe said, looking horrified at the concept.

I nodded, sighing, before Nate drew my attention back to him.

"What's his deal?"

I looked at his expression, surprised to see such dislike there, "It's Wolf, what d'you expect?"

"Not him, _him_," he nodded to where he was looking and I turned to look.

It was the rich brown eyes that I'd grown accustomed to over the past few days, stared right back at me with such intensity that I could already feel the blood rushing to my face. Spinning away, I turned to face Nate but instead chose to look at my lap rather than back at him.

"Jen."

His voice was much quieter this time, but also a lot nearer. If I was in my right mind, and not fluttering like a pansy, I probably would have known he was going to kiss me as soon as I looked back up. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the skill to act un-pansy-like and stumbled blindly into my first kiss.

I was surprised I didn't freeze up really, but my sub-conscious seemed to know what it was doing without my brain interfering. I wouldn't say that I didn't feel _nothing_ with Nate, but I was glad to get it over with. He was a nice boy, and I couldn't ask for anything better... But it just wasn't like that.

So pulling back, and looking into his eyes, I knew exactly what I wanted – and I knew it wasn't him.

xxxx

_Well... Okay, I'm not entirely sure what I was going to write here... There was something I was going to say but I've forgotten O-O If only you knew how bad my memory is. Oh well :P_

_I wrote this chapter in just over a day and I'm quite proud of that (: But I __**am **__sorry if it isn't up to par :L It's just if I didn't update now then I wouldn't have updated until Tuesday which I thought was too far away. Anyway, I'm 16 tomorrow (YEY! *party*) and my prom as well so I'm really hyped about that at the moment :D_

_Please leave a review! Constructive criticism is welcome (:_

_**InsignificantBlimp**_

5th July 12


	12. Very Important Note

**IMPORTANT NOTE**

I should have updated by now, but by a series of very unfortunate events I haven't been able to do it in the past three weeks - and now the police have my laptop with all of my chapters on. I don't know when it will be returned, so please be patient and I am **so SO sorry **for this wait! Please understand that I can't do anything about this until it is returned...

Thank you so much for understanding!

I love you all so much x


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Be My Fool**

_**Chapter Twelve**_

_D: I don't own Alex Rider._

xxxx

_This was actually written on 25__th__ July, but for obvious reasons could not be uploaded until now – I just got my laptop back today! *happy dance* So I hope you take this as an apology for not being able to update earlier! _

xxxx

Tulip and Leah had took me away straight after, dragging me by the arm towards the door – it was time to leave again – and I can't say I wasn't thankful. The atmosphere was a bit uneasy on my part, as I was walking with Chloe who seemed to be looking everywhere but at me. It got even worse when we entered the cabin.

"So," Farah coughed, looking at me as we settled down, "You and Nate, huh?"

I made a face and shuffled awkwardly. Chloe rolled her eyes dramatically before glaring at me.

Surprised, I raised my eyebrows at her, "Something wrong?"

"'Course not," though her voice obviously implied otherwise, "I just thought if you really liked a guy you'd be bouncing off walls if they'd kissed you, rather than sitting there making faces."

"Excuse me?" I swung onto the edge of my bunk, and waited for an answer.

Snorting, she leant against the wall, "Unless you're just fucking around with him, y'know... that's cool too. I just would've thought you'd want him to have better than that."

"I'm not '_fucking around with him'_!" I cried out, shocked at her behaviour.

"Well whatever you're doing, it doesn't look very good."

"It doesn't look very..." I gawped at her before snapping back, "So what exactly _have _I been doing then? All I know is that he kissed me, for no obvious reason, and then you start bitching at me for – actually, we haven't gotten to _that _point yet eith-"

"He's not an idiot you know!"She screamed over the top of me, "He does have _eyes_!"

"What the- what the hell are you _talking _about?"

"Do you want me to spell it out? _He knows you and Cub have a thing._ I mean," she raised an eyebrow, "The whole scene in the Mess Hall? It totally backed up his suspicions, and he didn't want to lose without a fight. It's just the sort of person he is."

It was a really bitchy thing for her to do, but it did make sense that he'd figured it out. The thing that caught my attention was the last thing she said and, eventually, I clicked on, "So how long have _you _liked Nate?"

There was a small silence, but I wasn't angry – in fact I was more amused than anything.

She opened her mouth but shut it quickly, blushing even worse than I normally do.

"Is _that _why you're so angry?" I asked, having stopped screaming at each other, "Because _you _like Nate?"

I sighed at the silence which followed, "Why didn't you just _tell _me?! I would've backed off. And he's yours anyway, I've decided that he isn't for me."

"Really?" She grinned, and I snorted slightly at her enthusiasm, "And you're not just saying that because of me?"

"What? No, really, go for it – he's all yours," I held my hands up in a 'I surrender' motion before grabbing a bottle of water and taking a sip.

"Wait, wait – _wait_," Leah said, holding a hand up, "Okay, right, so Nate is now Chloe's because Jen decided..."

"That he wasn't for me," I finished for her, watching as she struggled to grasp something.

"Okay... So what does that mean?" Tulip raised an eyebrow, "Like... have you just crossed him off the list or..."

"Have you decided on-"

BAM.

Eagle stumbled through the doorway, landing flat on his face on the floor. Somebody had squealed slightly, and I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest at any moment... but other than that, everything was good.

"What the- _have you been listening?_" Farah screamed, eyes wide and gawking at the soldier on the floor.

"Oh my God, how much of that did you hear?" Chloe demanded, already starting to blush again.

My heart nearly stopped – if he knew we were talking about Cub... _shit._

"Agh, don't get your knickers in a twist, I didn't even get to hear who Jen liked because the bloody door broke!" He sat up, rubbing his shoulder and glaring at the door.

Turning, I could see that the door had completely broken off of its hinges.

I sighed in relief, "We're coming up with codenames. There is no way in hell I'm having _Eagle _of _all people _know who I like – hell I'd take _Wolf _over him anyday!"

"Kinky," Leah winked at me and even I cracked a grin, flinging a pillow off her.

"You," I replied, swiping my hair up into a ponytail, "Are a _disturbed _child."

"I got it from you bitch," she retorted, throwing the pillow back up, "I was perfectly normal before I met you."

"Eagle!" That was Fox, suddenly at the doorway, "What the hell are you – _did you break this door_?"

"I didn't mean to!"

"Bloody hell_, really_? Why in the name of all holy-"

They screamed a few more things at each other before they moved out, and finally we were left alone again.

"Okay, so the codename for mine is **Peter**." Chloe claimed and they all turned to me.

"Uh... I don't know – I guess... Mine'll be **Dawson**." I shrugged at the looks they gave me, "First thing that came to mind but, for now, can we change the subject?"

They nodded in agreement and Farah burst out with, "So who _would _you rather pick: Wolf or Eagle?"

_You can kind of guess what happened from then..._

xxxx

Soon, it was time to head to dinner – which I was glad for, as the conversation seemed to be downward spiralling into insanity.

However I'd forgotten about our punishment from earlier in the day and I was pretty sure the dread had shown on my face when they reminded us.

"Oh my God," Leah groaned before looking around and continuing, "I swear, they're deliberately picking on me."

Tulip snorted, "And pray tell, why just you? What special qualities do you possess?"

"Well _obviously_," Farah said, her voice rather muffled because she was trying to talk with a spoon pressed against her face, "It's because they're jealous of her outstanding beauty."

"What are you _doing _with that spoon?" I looked at her like she was mad, which she probably was.

She just grinned at me, putting it down, "I like custard, leave me alone."

"Custard?" It was Leah's turn to snort, "You call that _custard_?"

Shaking her head in disapproval, or disbelief, she turned to face me. "Care to shed any light , or, y'know, _intelligence _to this conversation?"

"Well if we want to get finished before midnight, I suggest we get started," I replied, smiling sarcastically, "But really, I'm sure you'll love scraping lumpy goo off people's plates and can't _wait _to get started."

Laughing, Chloe pushed me a little off the bench, "C'mon, get moving. I want _some _decent sleep tonight."

"I think I've forgotten what decent sleep is," I said while pushing my way through to the kitchen, heading in first.

Tulip grinned, following through straight after, "I know the feeling – but we're probably leaving soon, so y'know..."

"I think Jen has it worst though," Leah said, having much too large a smirk on her face to be anything but sympathetic, "Considering how much trouble she's gotten into. I mean, really, nobody would know she's an A* pupil!"

The others laughed and I rolled my eyes, grinning, "Ha ha, very funny – and I'm not an A* pupil... I'm just _above average_."

"Yes, and I'm just _below average_," Chloe laughed, "But I make up for it in ways that actually _count_."

"Okay, please!" Farah put her hands over her ears, "Just – no, I do _not _want to hear about this. I am still innocent!"

"Shut up for fucks sake!" A soldier growled at us before exiting the kitchen through the back exit, holding a steaming cup of black coffee and a ciggie. As the door slammed, we looked at each other before trying not to laugh.

Ducking down into one of the cupboards, I pulled out the things I needed to clean the Mess Hall and placed them on the top.

"Right, well considering we have to do _all _of the Mess Hall," Tulip started, "Should we split it up into jobs?"

"Dibs on washing the tables!" I yelled before grabbing the cloth and spray and dodging as everybody dove for their preferred job. Farah got left with washing up the dishes.

Laughing at Farah, I called, "Unlucky!" before heading out of the door and into the eating area.

Still smirking, I shook my head as I could hear the arguments start and went to my usual table-cleaning duties. I think I was starting to get into the routine, which I couldn't figure out if it was a good or a bad thing.

I probably should have noticed it earlier, but when I did I almost dropped the spray I was holding.

"_Adam!_"

Spinning around slowly, he visibly looked annoyed. His unit also looked quite lost, but also _extremely _pissed. I probably should _not_ have done that.

Suddenly, the staff door opened and behold – Leah stood with a pan covered in bubbles, "Where?"

Blinking a few times, I started sniggering, "What the hell is the bloody _pan _meant to do Leah? Hit him over the head so we can knock some sense into him?"

"Do you _know _this kid, Lion?" One of the soldiers barked, glaring at me with so much disdain that you'd have thought I was a fly stuck on a window or something.

A small silence followed, while Adam seemed to observe me, and I just raised an eyebrow – wondering what he was going to say.

"I don't know, do I?"

Well... that was nice, wasn't it? Fortunately for him, I was not my brother and therefore didn't sock him in the jaw right there and then. Unfortunately for him, he was really close to getting there.

Raising my eyebrows at him, I replied, "Well I do seem to recall my brother and his friend rolling around trying to beat the shit out of each other because his friend had slept with his girlfriend... But then again, that could have been any dick really."

Shrugging, I made a sarcastic smile, "But, you know, I could be wrong – despite having the same birthmark and everything."

I flicked his neck where the birthmark was, knowing it would just aggravate him more, and smiled again before walking away to another empty table and spraying it.

The Mess Hall was rather still and quiet, as the remaining soldiers had took a keen interest in what was happening. Doing my best to ignore them, I started to wipe down the table.

"What do you want?"

Hiding a small smile of victory, I shook some of the crumbs onto the floor, "I want to know what you're doing."

"That's a little vague, don't you think?"

Looking up, I found him standing up and half-leaning half-sitting on the top of a bench – looking at me with crossed arms.

"I want to know what's gone down with you and my brother."

Snorting, he replied, "He asked you to talk to me?"

"Of course, you're his best friend, why wouldn't he try and sort things out?" I stood up properly and faced him when he turned away, "Honestly, I don't see why you're so upset. Sure he was meant to be here with you, but he had to stay back to look after-"

He sighed loudly and stood up, "Later, okay? I don't need this now."

Marching out, he knocked my shoulder as he went past and I didn't even have a chance to say anything before the door slammed shut after him.

Blinking a few times, slightly shocked, it wasn't long before I was snapped out of my stupor by one of his Unit. _Shockingly_, he was glaring at me.

"Stay the hell away from my Unit, you got it?"

Snorting, I rolled my eyes and completely ignored him before turning back to my table.

"_Oi_, I'm talking to you." Somebody roughly grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face them, "You got it?"

"I doubt you even knew his name before now," I shook my shoulder free, glaring right back at him, "So don't give me your bullshit about '_your Unit_' – 'kay?"

"You watch your mouth, you little bitch!"

My face snapped to the right as soon as his fist connected with my face, and I heard a small 'crack' from the impact against my jaw. The sharp pain was numbed a bit by the shock, but I probably should've known to hold my tongue - some of the soldiers don't have much self-control.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" Leah had come up to me, and currently blocked my view of what was happening.

I blinked a few times, before rubbing my face and wincing slightly, "Yeah, I just – didn't see it coming."

"Didn't see it coming?" Leah cried out, slightly hysterical, "Bloody hell Jen! How are you still _standing_?"

I rolled my eyes, though slightly amused by her antics, "Stop overreacting Leah, it was only a punch."

My brain was still trying to catch up with what was happening, and my brain was rather foggy but I couldn't help but laugh at her expression, I think she thought I was a little mad. Chloe had soon joined, and was pushing me to sit down.

"What's happening over there?" I asked, wondering who was crowding around whom and why... And also why there happened to be a lot of screaming.

"_Cub!_"

Oh look, there's Cub being dragged out – looking a bit... scary. He also had a split lip – ouch!... that _would _hurt in the morning.

"Uh, I think they just pulled Cub off of whoever that person is and they're now screaming at him for hitting you... that's about it really," Tulip came along, looking quite amused, "You know how to cause a scene, don't you Jen?"

Laughing, I winced slightly when my face twinged in pain, "It's not my fault, my mouth has a mind of its own!"

At least that made them laugh, and it lightened the mood a bit.

"You lot go back to your cabins, I need to check her over and you're just getting in the way," Snake bustled in, a bit like a mother hen, and I smiled at them before they were ushered out so they knew I was fine.

It was rather awkward once they had left though, since I was just sitting there with Snake prodding at my face trying to figure out if he'd broken anything or not.

"Is she good?" Fox had materialised out of nowhere, and was standing at my shoulder, "Nothing broken?"

"Nothing broken," Snake confirmed, pulling away, "Just a little bruised. So you might want to learn how to hold that tongue if you want to survive here."

It took me a moment to realise he was talking to me, but I nodded so that he knew I'd heard. I was suddenly quite tired, and just wanted to go to bed.

Realising that was all they were going to get out of me, they went to talk to Wolf and soon he let me go – flanked by none other than Cub. Sighing mentally, I decided that now wasn't really the time to overreact and start fluttering like a flower and concentrated on where my feet were and where we were going.

The rush of cold air helped clear my head a bit, and we started to trudge back to the cabins. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time, and by the time we'd reached the first corner I could feel my heartbeat start to pick up. As soon as we turned the corner, he stopped me by holding onto my wrist and spinning me around slowly.

I kept my eyes locked on the floor as he surveyed my face. With a weird sense of de ja vu, he lifted my chin and tilted my face slightly to look at the state of the bruise forming – I didn't have any choice but to look at him.

Shocked, I traced the small scrapes and forming bruises across his face with my eyes, wondering if he'd gotten them off the soldier.

"Did he do that to you?"

I think it shocked me just as much as him that I'd said that, and my eyes slid away from his to try and stop the flush rising to my face.

After a moment of silence, he spoke, "He's a lot worse, trust me."

Guilt flooded through me, "You shouldn't have-"

"Yes, I should have. Nobody can hurt you, especially low life like that." Turning my face again to look at him, his mouth twitched slightly, "It wouldn't hurt for you to look at me you know, I'm not going to bite."

There was so much I wanted to say – all of the obvious things I should have pointed out. This could never happen, it could never work. The longer I stayed around him, the harder I fell and the more likely this was to end in disaster. We were walking on landmines, and our luck is running out. But I couldn't. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I could only stand and stare at him – listening to the small erratic beat of my heart.

Moving slowly, as if not to scare a timid animal, he took a step closer to me so that we were pressed against each other. I couldn't help but lean into him, and I'm pretty sure he noticed but he didn't comment on it. His hand had dropped to my waist, and mine placed carefully on his chest – he might have thought I was going to push him away, which I was seriously considering, but even if it was for the best... I couldn't bring myself to do it. Gaining up some scarce courage, I stood on tip toe and watched his expression as I put my hands on his shoulders. He was so guarded, and he looked like he was going to jump ship any moment. Leaning in, I kissed his cheek slowly before lowering myself back to the ground. I let myself stay there for a moment before taking a small step away.

"Thank you," I said, watching his face to try and sort the emotions there. It was hard to tell, but the ball was in his court now – if he wanted to run, he could, but he knew where I stood.

I started to walk away, and soon after I could hear his faint steps start to follow me back to the cabin.

xxxx

_Does the pace of the story seem to be picking up now? So I'm not spending one day on three chapters or something ridiculous. Also, I've noticed that __**some people might be confused**__ – so, for example, about her __**family**__. I've mentioned her nanny, sister, brother, mother etc and you're probably wondering if I've gone mad or just forgotten what I've wrote. The thing is __**I forget sometimes when I'm writing that you all don't live in my brain,**__ so you don't really know about these sort of things... So I'm going to try and fit it into my writing somewhere to try and clear it up a bit :P_

_Please leave a review!_

_**InsignificantBlimp**_

4th October 12


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